Literary Works by Hanif Kureishi and Their Film Adaptations

Home , My Beautiful Laundrette

PALACKÝ UNIVERSITY OLOMOUC

FACULTY OF ARTS

Department of English and American Studies

Bc. Adéla Habrnalová

Literary Works by Hanif Kureishi

and Their Film Adaptations

Master Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Pavlína Flajšarová, Ph.D.

Olomouc 2016

Místopřísežně prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci na téma ―Literary Works by Hanif Kureishi and Their Film Adaptations‖ vypracovala samostatně pod odborným dohledem vedoucí diplomové práce a uvedla jsem všechny použité podklady a literaturu.

V Olomouci dne 5. 5. 2016 Podpis ………………………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Pavlína Flajšarová, Ph.D. for her guidance, patience, and valuable advice throughout writing this master thesis.

I would also like to express gratitude to my family and friends for their support and encouragement during my studies.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ...... 7

1. HANIF KUREISHI’S BIOGRAPHY ...... 9

2. CONCISE HISTORY OF ADAPTATION STUDIES ...... 14

2.1. Search for Interdisciplinary Dialog ...... 14

3. LINDA HUTCHEON’S THEORY OF ADAPTATION ...... 20

3.1. The Appeal of Adaptation ...... 20

3.1.1. Modes of Engagement...... 23

3.2. WHAT? (Forms) ...... 24

3.3. WHO? WHY? (Adapters) ...... 26

3.4. HOW? (Audiences) ...... 28

3.4.1. Knowing and Unknowing Audiences ...... 28

3.4.2. Modes of Engagement Revisited ...... 29

3.4.3. Kinds and Degrees of Immersion ...... 30

3.5. WHERE? WHEN? (Contexts) ...... 30

4. MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE ...... 32

4.1. Writing a Screenplay and Writing a Novel ...... 32

4.2. The Background and the Origin of the Screenplay and Film ...... 32

4.3. Plot Overview ...... 34

4.4. The Reception of the Film ...... 34

4.5. Comparison of Selected Aspects and Scenes ...... 37

5. THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA ...... 40

5.1. Plot Overview ...... 40

5.2. The Background and the Origin of the Novel ...... 40

5.3. The Reception of the Novel ...... 40

5.4. The Background and the Origin of the Film Adaptation ...... 41

5.5. The Reception of the Film Adaptation ...... 42

5.6. Comparison of Selected Aspects and Scenes ...... 43

6. INTIMACY ...... 46

6.1. The Background and the Origin of the Written Works ...... 46

6.2. The Reception of the Novella ...... 47

6.3. The Background and the Origin of the Film Adaptation ...... 50

6.4. The Reception of the Film Adaptation ...... 51

6.5. Comparison of the Plots ...... 53

6.6. Comparison of Selected Aspects and Scenes ...... 54

CONCLUSION ...... 58

RESUMÉ ...... 62

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 66

ANOTACE ...... 70

ANNOTATION ...... 71

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this thesis is to compare selected literary works written by Hanif Kureishi to their film adaptations. The theoretical frame used throughout the thesis is based on Linda Hutcheon‘s theory of adaptation. This methodological frame was thoroughly chosen after research of current trends in adaptation studies. Hutcheon attempts to prove that the adaptations have the same value as the adapted texts. In addition, Hutcheon claims that evaluating adaptations on the premise of fidelity is obsolete and futile. Hutcheon defines three different modes in which texts engage their audience—telling, showing, and interacting. In this thesis, the telling mode of literary works and the showing mode of their film adaptations will be examined and compared.

The first chapter is devoted to brief biography of Hanif Kureishi. It is essential to be acquainted with Kureishi‘s life since his works are assumed to be based on autobiographic events. Kureishi‘s works were selected for this thesis for being considered highly controversial. The comparison of selected reviews of both the adapted text and the adaptation will be executed in the last three chapters.

The second chapter contains a concise history of adaptation studies and history of search for interdisciplinary dialog. In the past, the fidelity of adaptation to its adapted text was considered to be crucial. Although this approach is rather being relinquished by contemporary researchers in adaptation studies, it still reverberates. This thesis is supported by Linda Hutcheon‘s theory of adaptation which is demonstrated in the third chapter. It deals with the appeal of adaptation, different modes of engagement, forms of adaptations, adapters, audience, and context among other matters.

The fourth chapter is dedicated to the analysis of My Beautiful Laundrette. It does not include an adaptation to be more precise. The screenplay written by Hanif Kureishi and film directed by Stephen Frears will be compared. Furthermore, the reception of the film will be demonstrated by presenting excerpts from selected reviews.

The fifth chapter deals with the analysis of the novel The Buddha of Suburbia written by Kureishi and its adaptation in the form of television miniseries. It was

7 made for BBC by Kureishi and the director Roger Michell. In addition, excerpts from selected reviews of both the novel and the miniseries will be explored.

The sixth chapter is devoted to the last analysis which deals with novella Intimacy and a short story ―Nightlight‖ and film Intimacy loosely based on these literary works. And similarly as in the two previous chapters, excerpts from selected reviews will be analysed.

1. HANIF KUREISHI’S BIOGRAPHY

The birthplace of Hanif Kureishi is Bromley, a South London suburb. He was born in 1954. ―While he experienced a typical English childhood, Kureishi‘s cultural background was uncommon. Although English, he did not grow up within the Church of England tradition; although Pakistani, he did not grow up within the Muslim tradition.‖1 His subject of study at University of London was Philosophy. Before he became a writer he had to do various jobs such as usher or jack-off-all- trades.2 ―His early plays were produced by London‘s Theatre Upstairs, the Royal Court Theatre, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and he enjoyed international success with the 1985 screenplay My Beautiful Laundrette, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1990, his novel, The Buddha of Suburbia, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for first novels.‖3 His fiction works have been published on regular basis in recognised periodicals such as the New Yorker, Granta, the London Review of Books and the Atlantic Monthly.4

In 1993, Kureishi‘s twin boys named Sachin and Carlo were born. Their mother is Kureishi‘s former editor at Faber & Faber Tracey Scoffield. They were married but now are divorced. His new relationship with Monique Proudlove started in 1995. Their son named Kier was born in 1998.5 Kureishi‗s mother Audrey is of English origin while his father Rafiushan Kureishi is of Indian/Pakistani origin.6 ―His father Rafiushan was from a relatively affluent Muslim family from Madras and came to Britain in 1947 to read law (most of the family moved to Pakistan after Partition).‖7

Kureishi, . . . , represents what the opening paragraph of The Buddha famously describes as a ‗new breed‘ of Englishman in a number of different senses. He can be categorised initially as one of the first generation of children of ‗New Commonwealth‘ origins to be born in

1 Kenneth C. Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998), 18. 2 Bradley Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 31; Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 20. 3 Bradley Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 31 4 Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi, 31. 5 Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi, 31. 6 Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi, 31. 7 Bart Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 13.

Britain, but this description is complicated by Kureishi‘s Anglo- Pakistani/Indian parentage, which makes him a minority within minority.8

When growing up, Kureishi experienced many abusive and bullying situations to such an extent that he admits, ―‗I couldn‘t tolerate being myself‘.‖9 ―In work as diverse as ‗The Rainbow sign‘, The Buddha, The Black Album and ‗We‘re not Jews‘, Kureishi provides harrowing accounts of the torment and self-hatred to which racism can lead young people from such minorities.‖10

In an interview in 1997, Kureishi discussed how his complex personal background impinges upon his work: I came from two worlds … There was my Pakistani family, my uncles, aunts and so on. Then there was my English family, who were lower middle or working class. My grand-father had pigeons and grey-hounds and all that. And having an Indian father … So, finding my way through all that … I wrote all those books to make sense of it.11

Kureishi‘s complex relationship with his father is another focus of his autobiographical works. Kureishi left home when he was young and it very afflicted his father. ‗Oedipal tropes‘ can be also seen in his later fiction although used in a more complex way. One reason for this could be the fact that Kureishi became father himself and the paternity issue started to appear in his works. The protagonists of his later works were no longer young men but paternal figures. When Hanif‘s father died he had mixed feelings about it. On one hand he felt relieved, on the other hand he felt guilty. In his memoir My Ear at His Heart Kureishi tries to attribute his father‘s puritanism to the fact that he is an immigrant.12

… he did consider … white girls to be slutty, though he‘d married a white girl himself … Father disliked Muslim conservatism, but didn‘t like my sister looking ‗tarty‘. If the immigrant always lives in a world he

8 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 13. 9 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 13. 10 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 13-14. 11 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 14. 12 Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi, 32-36.

cannot quite grasp, he might seek to petrify it by controlling his children and … their sexuality. (My Ear 115)13

―Given the many obvious connections that appear between Kureishi‘s work and the broad movements of his life, it is difficult to avoid the hypothesis that Kureishi‘s work is primarily autobiographical rather than social, or confessional rather than political.‖14 The next factor contributing to such hypothesis is the fact that Kureishi often names characters after members of his family or other people he is or was close to. The people involved frequently denounced Hanif‘s treating of biographical material.15

In a letter to The Guardian in 1998 Kureishi‘s sister claimed that Kureishi gave ‗a false impression of our family life‘; she insisted that her grandfather ‗was not a ―cloth cap working class person‖ ‘, but owned three shops, and that her parents were well-off enough to send her to ballet school. Kureishi‘s mother corroborated Yasmin‘s account in an interview in The Observer shortly afterwards: ‗I suppose it‘s trendy nowadays for an author to pretend they had a working-class background, but Hanif had everything he wanted as a child.‘16

Kureishi‘s reactions to such denouncements were miscellaneous. Sometimes he adopts a defensive attitude: ―Kureishi has elsewhere insisted that his work is not faithful in detail to his experience: ‗Like Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie is quite a personal story, autobiographical, not in its facts, but emotionally‘.‖17 Another example of his reaction was admission that he did not manage to keep the appropriate distance from his life experience when writing: ―‗I know that in certain passages I‘ve been spiteful‘‖18 ―At the reading of Intimacy, moreover, Kureishi argued that, while writers cannot help but draw on their own experience, they adapt, edit or add to it in conformity with the demands of the story and other elements of aesthetic form.‖19

13 Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi, 32. 14 Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi, 39. 15 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 14-15. 16 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 15. 17 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 16. 18 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 16. 19 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 16.

Kureishi started to be interested in cinema in 1970s and was very keen on American film culture. It is not very common for writers to work in film and television industry. Kureishi admires popular music which he was using in his works and films to express and emphasize the emotional effect.20 ―. . . Pop is valued by Kureishi because it articulates both the political protest and the ‗sexual revolution‘ associated with the 1960s which, in theory at least, pointed the way towards more tolerant and flexible conceptions of sexuality and gender roles as well as of class identities.‖21 Kureishi considers pop to be as important as already established ―high‖ cultural forms. According to Kureishi pop is ―the richest cultural form of post-war Britain‖.22

Kureishi believes that gender, sexuality and ethnicity are on the same level of importance as conceptions of race, class and nation when speaking about categories of (self-) identification. Kureishi‘s works are valued by younger British especially because he takes its sub-cultures seriously and also because experiencing difficulty in young age is one of primary themes in his works. In addition, Kureishi has extraordinary sense of humour.23

―One of the key questions posed in his work is: ‗So what does it mean to be British?‘ Most of his writing up to 1995, at least, constitutes an evolving set of analyses of – and attempted answers to – this problematic.‖24 In ―The Rainbow Sign‖ Kureishi describes his return to England from Pakistan where he was for the first time. He is surprised how British he feels, however after an attack on an Asian family in the East End he reacts: ―‗who wants to be British anyway?‘‖25 Then he refuses any patriotic feeling and demands ―new way of being British:‖26

In the meantime it must be made clear that black don‘t require ‗tolerance‘ in this particular condescending way. It isn‘t this particular paternal tyranny that is wanted, since it is major adjustments to British society that have to be made. I stress that it is the British who have to make these

20 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 7-8. 21 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 9. 22 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 10. 23 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 10. 24 Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 10, 4. 25 Susie Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 3. 26 Susie Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 3.

adjustments. It is the British, the white British, who have to learn that being British isn‘t what it was. Now it is a more complex thing, involving new elements. So there must be a fresh way of seeing Britain and the choices it faces: and a new way of being British after all this time.27

27 Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 3.

2. CONCISE HISTORY OF ADAPTATION STUDIES

Film adaptations are inseparable albeit inconsistent part of cinematography history.28 In the nineties, a new wave of interest in film adaptation began predominantly in Anglo-American field of research. This new wave of interest has led to reappraising of the older starting points. Today‘s gradually established academic discipline aims to find new themes exempt from subjective appraisals.

In the second chapter of her influential book A Theory of Adaptation (2006), Linda Hutcheon deals with biases which still affect debates regarding literature and film. One of the clichés she resolutely denies is repetitive attribution of closeness of the viewpoint or interiority of the immersed subject exclusively to literary narration. In addition, Hutcheon deals with time, irony, metaphor, and symbol in relation to narratives updated by verbal and performance media. Hutcheon concludes her text with considering authors of these truisms to be defenders of literature.

Thomas Leitch engages in frequently discussed issue of fidelity to the original work. Leitch explains endeavours of fidelity as an exception which must be understood in the context of given transcription. Efforts to be faithful to the plots of canonical or famous books are according to Leitch often associated with commercial intentions of the creators, because just such works can then arouse great interest of the audience. Leitch is also interested in creators‘ motivation for making adaptations of such books, production history, promotion and marketing of film versions.

Australian literary researcher Simone Murray sees major field of adaptation studies in context analysis. According to Leitch, one of the starting points of way forward (as a follow-up to Hutcheon formulations) is to consider adaptation as an autonomous act and not to focus only on source texts.

2.1. Search for Interdisciplinary Dialog

Film adaptations were for a long time considered mere copies of more important and more valuable literary works.29 The adaptation thinking itself is relatively young.

28 Petr Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Editorial,‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu, no. 1 (2010): 5-6. 29 Petr Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu, no. 1 (2010): 5-6.

Principal theoretic and methodological concepts began to form in connection with establishing film studies at American and British universities in the sixties and seventies. Close reading was still prevailing at many faculties of arts being reinforced by awareness of uniqueness of a novel or a poem and the uniqueness of the literary act.

The greatest interest was in canonical works. It often led to privileging of the printed texts which lead readers to develop their imagination in the contrary to the motion picture. It was assumed that novel is not possible to transform into film and that most of literary genres are incompatible with film representation of the fiction world.30 Despite many adaptations having been made, most of film researchers did not engage in the phenomenon and thus contributed to such condition. The situation started to change slowly in the eighties and the nineties. At the end of the twentieth century, adaptation become part of research discourse of humanities. The analysis of adaptation represented fashionable interdisciplinary turn which manifested itself among others by university seminars such as ―Shakespeare and Film,‖ Dickens in the Film‖ etc.31

One of the first theoreticians of film adaptation was George Bluestone. In his work Novels into Film (1957), Bluestone notified of the differences between the two media. These differences were supposed to cause the inability of film adaptation to resemble its literary source. Bluestone saw the distinction especially in the linguistic nature of literature and the visual nature of film-presentation. Every film-maker becomes a new author. Literary source provides them merely with springboard for their own production.32 Bluestone commenced a period of searching for differences between literature and film.

Another argument for critical appraisal of adaptations is emphasizing the differences between reception and perception as two distinct ways of world comprehension. There is still vigorous effort to measure reception against perception.

30 Katarína Mišíková, Mysl a příběh ve filmové fikci. O kognitivistických přístupech k teorii filmové narace, (Praha: Nakladatelství Akademie múzických umění 2009) 154, in Petr Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu, no. 1 (2010): 7. 31 Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 8. 32 George Bluestone, Novels into Film (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2003), s 61-62, in Petr Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu, no. 1 (2010): 9.

Reading a book is considered to be intellectual process whereas watching a film is associated with entertainment, relax, and suppressing one‘s own imagination. In film, everything is presented in its completeness thus members of the audience do not have to use their fantasy. Receptive aesthetician Wolfgang Iser termed film as medium without gaps. The reception of prose is according to Iser richer and more personal in perception. Film, on the contrary, indicates merely the physical perception and every vision of the world the viewer remembers is brutally dissolved.33

Seymour Chatman aptly opposed to this opinion which appears among literary researchers. In his influential book Coming to Terms (1990) Chatman puts himself a question: if film is visually explicit, does that necessarily mean that there are no gaps which could be filled? Film can be assumed to be without gaps only when perceived at the lower sensory level. Gaps appear in films at generally narrative and stylistic level. Chatman‘s further argument emphasizes conceptual imagination which can be significantly stimulated during watching the film.34

Both literature and film were proclaimed equal in a broader cultural text. Their relationship is not based on logics of hierarchy or competition. It is based on being legitimate part of the whole culture. This neutral position enables to study basis of intermediary relations exempted from prejudice.35

It is necessary to define the phenomenon. Linda Hutcheon defines adaptation as both a product and process. It opens broader space for debates regarding adaptations including not only usual formalistic analysis but also questions related to new reading of literary work, with context of transcription origin, relation between readers and audience experience, etc. Hutcheon‘s theory of adaptation will be dealt with in the following chapter.36

The fidelity approach, despite being often used even currently, is slowly but surely in remission. In the first half of twentieth century, great deal of adaptations

33 Wolfgang Iser, The Reading Process: The Implied Reader. Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press 1974), 283, in Petr Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu, no. 1 (2010): 9. 34 Seymour Chatman, Coming to Terms, The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1990), 162, in Petr Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu, no. 1 (2010): 9- 10. 35 Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 10. 36 Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 11.

16 was unsuccessful. It made theoreticians jump to conclusions that the film does not reach the quality of the novel because it is unable to capture fictional literary world. Kamilla Elliott claimed that adaptation can be successful only under the condition of being faithful to the original work.37

Approaches focused on fidelity are rejected nowadays. Departure from fidelity comes out from poststructuralist turn. Nearly every author dealing with film adaptation theory warns about the fact that fidelity concepts limit the discipline development. Paradox might arise in form of audience‘s efforts to think about the relation of the adaptation to the adapted text and consider the degree of adaptation resemblance to the original work. In addition, there is also a discrepancy between theory, common reception practice and conventional thinking. Umberto Eco asserted that open art work provide us with unlimited number of meanings. Stanley Fish, on the contrary, claimed that objective characterisation is only an illusion. In that case, it is possible to be faithful to the original text merely at the very basic level of narrative events. These facts however do no mean that it is necessary to resign from consideration of changes in adaptations. Various questions can be dealt with such as: How film-makers interpreted literary text? Was the meaning of the original text changed in the process of adaptation? Was motivation of the authors artistic, economic, political, etc.? What is the relation of this adaptation to previous film of the same author? What does it say about current state of British TV production?38

For current adaptation thinking it is typical to interpret literary and film narrative. Formalistic approach is methodological starting point of a number of works. According to Chatman, basic questions regarding film adaptations are always somehow related to adjusting and changes of the story. Therefore it is convenient to search for new topics such as narrator, focalization, and characters. The issue of time is also interesting for film researchers therefore it would be appropriate to concentrate on basic modes of time structure: order, duration, and frequency.39

Brian McFarlane‗s contribution to the field also needs to be mentioned. In his Novel to Film from half of the nineties, McFarlane continued in Barthes‘ structural narrative analysis. McFarlane distinguished between elements that can be easily

37 Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 12-13. 38 Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 13. 39 Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 14.

17 transferred on screen and elements that require adaptation. Easily transferable element is for example the plot whereas elements such as the atmosphere of the fictional world or characterisation of protagonists are not. McFarlane distinguishes between narrative and narration. The attribute which is shared by novel and film is the ―narrative‖ whilst they differ in the way of ―narration.‖40

Theoreticians try to demonstrate new ways for the discipline. At the beginning of twenty-first century, there was no comprehensive theory of adaptation. Thomas Leitch described this situation as ―theoretical vacuum.‖ Great impulse for change was a project of Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo. British researchers Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan founded a journal Adaptation: The Journal of Literature on Screen Studies. They set themselves a target to find a dialog between literary and film science and demonstrate their reciprocal enrichment through translation of one art into the other and mutual blending of literary and film aspects. This approach is crucial for adaptation studies and it should bring freedom from the one-sided influence of literary discourses. Another interesting area for research might be in dealing with reception question in more detail. Not much has been written yet about reader who approaches a literary work after watching its film adaptation. The way in this direction was indicated by Polish film researcher Alicja Helman. Helman is particularly interested in a more complex relation of viewer acquainted with the literary source to adaptation. Helman distinguishes between watching a film based on an original screenplay and perception of adaptation. In the first case, the viewer reconstructs the film structure in semantic audio-visual motion. In the second case, the viewer is equipped with certain knowledge of already introduced fictional world. This knowledge appears in viewer‘s memory and the viewer is thus able to compare literary and film works being aware of analogies and distinctions. The result is the creation of the new virtual work. The viewer creates a unity which is neither only the book nor merely the film being watched at the very moment.41

Different direction of the discipline is being sought by Peter Lev in his study ―The Future of Adaptation Studies.‖ The aspect which has not been yet enough

40 Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 15. 41 Thomas Leitch, Twelve Fallacies in Contemporary Adaptation Theory, 150, in Petr Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu, no. 1 (2010): 18; Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 18-19.

18 discussed in adaptation studies according to Lev is the screenplay. Screenplay testifies about the process of adaptation and it can also become an art form in itself. He regards two facts which might hinder study of screenplays. Firstly, screenplays are not easily accessed. Secondly, the research can be particularly tough considering various drafts of screenplay, literary source and finished film.42

The future of adaptation studies resides in search for new questions and application of topical initiatives of literary and film theory and methodology. Instead of usual textual comparisons, there are several possible directions in which the developing discipline might move. First of all, the research might focus on reasons why such transcription was created and what are its consequences for distinct literary readings. Possible questions might regard issues of gender, politics, etc. Second of all, television adaptation is another interesting direction in research as it differs from feature film in various aspects. How the film makers use the benefit of series format which is much more close to the multi-page novel than is the feature film?43

The following chapter will be dealing with Linda Hutcheon‘s theory of adaptations research which belongs among the modern and significant directions in the discipline. Hutcheon‘s theory will be used throughout the entire thesis.

42 James M. Welsh and Peter Lev, eds., The Literature/film Reader: Issues of Adaptation (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2007), 335-338; Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 19. 43 Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu,‖ 20.

3. LINDA HUTCHEON’S THEORY OF ADAPTATION

This thesis will use Linda Hutcheon‘s theory of adaptation for comparing literary works to their film adaptations. ―Linda Hutcheon holds the rank of University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto.‖ Hutcheon specializes in ―postmodernist culture and in critical theory.‖44

According to Hutcheon, there are three modes of engagement with audience— telling mode, showing mode, and interactive mode. Every mode of engagement differs in the degree of audience‘s immersion. In this thesis, merely telling and showing mode will be examined, since the process of adaptation of all three works is from the telling to the showing mode of engagement. Hutcheon‘s theory is also based on the assumption that fidelity factor is obsolete and it is essential to focus on different matters in adaptation studies. Hutcheon positions adapted text and adaptation on the same level of importance as both are considered autonomous works.

The aim of the thesis is to consider various scenes and aspects in adapted texts as well as adaptations in terms of the telling mode and showing mode of engagement.

3.1. The Appeal of Adaptation

George Kubler claims that ―human desires in every present instance are torn between the replica and the invention, between the desire to return to the known pattern, and the desire to escape it by a new variation."45 This human desire partly explains the appeal of adaptations as they fulfil both these desires. Hutcheon explains ―the popularity of adaptations‖ by ―two different ways of thinking: either stories are considered forms of representation and thus vary with period and culture, or they are what theorists like Marie-Laure Ryan identify as timeless cognitive models by which we make sense of our world and of human action in it.‖46

44 ―Linda Hutcheon,‖ http://individual.utoronto.ca/lindahutcheon/. 45 George Kubler, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), 72, in Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation (New York: Routledge, 2006), 173. 46 Marie-Laure Ryan , Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 242-243, in Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation (New York: Routledge, 2006), 175.

What they are not is necessarily inferior or second-rate—or they would not have survived. Temporal precedence does not mean anything more than temporal priority.‖

Hutcheon questions the view of the ―original― or the ―source― text as superior to adaptation. Hutcheon also argues that there are a number of purposes why adaptations emerge besides the idea of ―fidelity‖. The idea of superiority or priority of the original text is also challenged if we perceive the adaptation prior to the original. Hutcheon studies adaptations as adaptations. This comprises of works which are autonomous, consciously expanding and revisiting the text they originate from. Hutcheon‘s theoretical perspective is both ―formal and ‗experiential.‘‖ ―In other words, the different media and genres that stories are transcoded to and from in the adapting process are not just formal entities; . . . , they also represent various ways of engaging audiences.‖47 These ways of involving audience include three modes of engagement. The first one is the telling mode the most characteristic for novels and short stories. The second case is all performance media which engage with their audience by showing the stories. The third mode is interactive one represented by videogames. In this thesis, the telling and the showing modes will be examined.48 ―These three different modes of engagement provide the structure of analysis for this attempt to theorize what might be called the what, who, why, how, when, and where of adaptation.‖49

Adaptations are considered to be ‗palimpsestuous‘ works. (Palimpsest means ―a very old document on which the original writing has been erased and replaced with new writing‖ or ―something that has changed over time and shows evidence of that change‖50) As Hutcheon suggests, ―adaptation is a form of repetition without replication, change is inevitable, even without any conscious updating or alteration of setting.‖51 The adapted text is always present even when the audience is directly focusing only on adaptation provided that the audience has previous knowledge of the prior text.52 ―Adaptation as adaptation is unavoidably a kind of intertextuality . . .

47 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation (New York: Routledge, 2006), XIV. 48 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, XIII-XIV. 49 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, XIV. 50 ―Palimpsest,‖ Merriam Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/palimpsest. 51 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, XVI. 52 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 6.

21 the engagement with these other works in adaptations are extended ones, not passing allusions. Part of both pleasure and the frustration of experiencing an adaptation is the familiarity bred through repetition and memory.‖53

There are many possible reasons why adaptations are so appealing for adapters: ―financial appeal to adaptation,‖ ―to avoid financial risks, as well as troubles with censors.‖ Adapting a successful novel anticipates a successful adaptation. Some adaptors might enjoy the fact that adaptation is repetition of some previous work and they can surprise the audience expectations. It is also the case of audience, which is supposed to be broader with plays than with novels and even more with movie or television.54 In addition, Hutcheon mentions ―the urge to consume and erase the memory of the adapted text or to call it into question is as likely as the desire to pay tribute by copying.‖55

Hutcheon deals with adaptation as both ―the process‖ and ―the product‖ and introduces ―three distinct but interrelated perspectives‖ which demarcate adaptations:56

1. Formal entity or product:

An adaptation is an announced and extensive transposition of a particular work or works. This ‗transcoding‘ can involve a shift of medium (a poem to a film) or genre (an epic to a novel), or a change of frame and therefore context: telling the same story from a different point of view, for instance, can create a manifestly different interpretation. Transposition can also mean a shift in ontology from the real to the fictional, from a historical account or biography to a fictionalized narrative or drama.

2. Process of creation:

The act of adaptation always involves both (re-)interpretation and then (re-)creation; this has been called both appropriation and salvaging, depending on your perspective.

53 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 21. 54 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 5-6. 55 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 7. 56 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 7.

3. Process of reception:

Adaptation is a form of intertextuality: we experience adaptations (as adaptations) as palimpsests through our memory of other works that resonate through repetition with variation.57

The word ―adaptation‖ has undergone many attempts to be replaced by some new and more convenient word which would express its complexity. It is not an easy task to define this concept by one word. One reason is definitely the fact that it includes the idea of adaptation as ―the product‖ and also the idea of adaptation as ―the process.‖58

The ―novelty‖ is what the adapter adds to the adapted text to create the adaptation. ―Perhaps one way to think about unsuccessful adaptations is not in terms of infidelity to a prior text, but in terms of a lack of the creativity and skill to make the text one‘s own and thus autonomous.‖59 The problem might appear when adapting classics because in that case ―the audiences are more demanding of fidelity.‖60

3.1.1. Modes of Engagement

Hutcheon brought a new approach to adaptations which are often of intermedial nature. She distinguishes between three modes of engagement with the audience: telling, showing, and interacting. Each of these modes of engagement allows different degree of immersion. This thesis focuses on telling and showing modes of engagement. ―The telling mode immerses us through imagination in a fictional world; the showing mode (plays and films) immerses us through the perception of the aural and the visual.‖61 The discussed adapted texts in this thesis are novel, novella, short story, and screenplay using the telling mode of engagement. The examined adaptations in the thesis are two movies and one TV series using the showing mode of engagement. Each mode of engagement has different advantages and disadvantages. In telling mode, limits of our imagination are highly individual and the experience is controlled only by the words of the text. When reading a book

57 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 7-8. 58 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 15. 59 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 20. 60 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 29. 61 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 22.

―we can re-read or skip ahead‖ which differs from the showing mode experience. When we are shown a story in film or stage adaptations, the act is unstoppable unless we watch a DVD. That might result in the feeling that reading a book is much more under our control than watching a movie in a cinema. The advantage of performance mode is the fact that words are not the only element carrying a meaning. Gestures and visual representations are significant as well. Sounds and music are also integral part in representing character‘s emotions and even in eliciting responses in the audience. Visual and verbal elements can be amplified, moderated, or even opposed by sound and music. The writer can take us into the minds of characters, however in a film we do not get this chance and we have to focus on actors‘ facial expressions and gestures or listen to the music and sounds to guess what they think or how they feel.62

Focusing on these three ways of engaging with stories – telling, showing, and interacting – ―can allow for certain precisions and distinctions that a focus on medium alone cannot. It also allows for linkages across media that a concentration on medium-specificity can efface, and thus moves us away from just the formal definitions of adaptation to consider the process.‖63

3.2. WHAT? (Forms)

This thesis focuses on ―the most commonly considered adaptations . . . those that move from the telling to the showing mode, usually from print to performance.‖64 Transferring a novel to the screen requires cutting and reducing in size. It may seem as a negative aspect at first however the adaptation can become more powerful thanks to condensation of the plots. Film adaptations can also add many elements which can vary from the less significant such as ―bodies, voices, sound, music, props, costumes, architecture, and so on‖ to the more significant elements such as ―new characters, increasing suspense‖ or the adapter can absolutely change the mood of the ending for example ―substitute a happy ending to mute tragedy or horror.‖65

62 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 22-27. 63 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 27. 64 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 38. 65 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 36-37.

―In this negative discourse of loss, performance media are said to be incapable of linguistic or narrative subtlety or of representing the psychological or the spiritual.‖66

Many theoreticians claim that using first-person narration is the privilege of the telling media. It is possible to realize first-person narration also in film in the form of ―voice-over‖ or ―soliloquy‖, nonetheless it rather disrupts the action on the screen. There are some films using camera from the perspective of the protagonist so the audience see exactly what does the protagonist, however this technique is used very rarely. Camera can be, on one hand, particularly useful tool in film. The telling mode can simply tell us what the characters think about and how they feel, nevertheless in film it is close-up which helps the audience to see facial expressions of the actors in detail. Therefore the audience can analyse their emotions. On the other hand, the scene which can be seen by the audience is limited by the camera direction.67

Regarding ―conveying exteriority,‖ the film might seem to be advantaged, yet ―in a film all the items are concurrently present, of equal weight and thus significance— at least until the camera lingers or lighting cues our eye.‖68 The telling medium can decide what to focus on and then choose either dense or brief description of particular items.69 Similar principle applies when taking into account the importance of the action. The reader of the book simply guesses the importance of the action according to the length and nature of its description. In film, the spectator sees all characters at once. ―But the kind of shot (long, medium, close-up; angles, reverses), not to mention the duration of the shot, is in fact always dictated by the dramatic importance of what is being filmed, not by any naturalistic timing or pacing od the actual action.‖70

Sally Walker suggests that exposition is one of the elements whose transition is not easy from novel to film. Novels often use exposition to convey character‘s background information in order to curtail ―character‘s options or the plot events.‖71

66 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 37-38. 67 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 53-54; 42-43. 68 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 61-62. 69 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 61-62. 70 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 64. 71 Sally J. Walker, Write Now Workshops Series, vol. 3, Intro to Screenwriting (San Francisco: FictionWorks, 2012), 57, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.mzk.cz/ehost/detail/detail/bmxlYmtfXzYzNzU0NV9fQU41?sid=3c 8b799f-9324-4e38-ab07- d65e7049b27a@sessionmgr4003&vid=0#AN=637545&db=nlebk. EBSCO library archive.

For the purpose of exposition, films can relatively successfully use devices such as ―scrolling information at the opening, [voice over], the montage [series of shots] glimpses, or depicting a very brief backstory scene.‖72

Both prose fiction and film are ―capable of flashbacks and flashforwards‖ however ―its very immediacy [in film] can make the shifts potentially more effective than in prose fiction where the narrating voice stands between the characters immersed in time and the reader.‖73 Film makers have at their disposal many other technical tools and effects. For example, ―literature‘s ‗meanwhile‘, ‗elsewhere‘, and ‗later‘ find their equivalent in the filmic dissolve, as one image fades in as another fades out and time merges with space in a more immediate way than is possible with words.‖74 When adapting prose fiction into film, it is necessary to make many cuts and select only the most important plots and subplots so as to fit to the given scope of time. Films usually benefit from this process because they are more compressed than novel and thus more dramatic. It is convenient to use such images ―that will visually relate an instantaneous concept every time it appears without wasting precious script page or film time.‖75 Television series, in comparison to films, have more time at its disposal. Therefore such a great amount of cuts is not indispensable. Creators of television series have to face the fact that every episode must fit into precisely given scope of time which might be quite challenging experience.76

3.3. WHO? WHY? (Adapters)

Who is the adapter is an easy question for the telling media that have only one author, the writer. In the performance media, the process of interpretation and creation is collaborative. It is a collective process realized by the team of many artists. Could be just one of them considered to be the adapter? How about the screenwriter who interprets and recreates the adapted text as the first artist? The whole subsequent work on the adaptation is based on the script so considering the screenwriter as the adapter seems logical. However, it also brings some pitfalls such as ―possible complexity‖ in the task to decide the author of the script. There are cases

72 Walker, Write Now Workshops Series, vol. 3, Intro to Screenwriting, 57. 73 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 63-64. 74 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 63-64. 75 Walker, Write Now Workshops Series, vol. 3, Intro to Screenwriting, 61. 76 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 47, 66.

26 in which the first script was reworked by another screenwriter and sometimes changes are made by editors.77

―Music director/composer‖ who creates the sound and the music to enhance the emotions or to elicit the audience‘s reactions could be another possibility. Their role in the process of making the adaptation is essential nonetheless ―composers usually work from the script, not from the adapted text, because they have to write music specifically to fit the production‘s action, timing, and budget‖.78

Actors sometimes draw inspiration from the adapted text especially in the case of playing well-known literary characters. Every actor certainly brings something special to the adaptation however they rather adapt the screenplay which they always have to follow.79

―The editor sees and creates the whole in a way no one else does. Yet none of these artists—screenwriter, composer, designer, cinematographer, actor, editor, and the list could go on—is usually considered the primary adapter of a film or television production.‖80 As already mentioned above, performance media are collaborative. ―There are multiple makers and therefore arguably multiple adapters.‖81

Many artists participate in the complex process of film creation. It is not an easy task to define the adapter, however it is obvious ―from both studio press release and critical response that the director is ultimately held responsible for the overall vision and therefore for the adaptation as adaptation.‖82 Nevertheless, the screenwriter usually begins the process by writing the screenplay besides the process of interpreting and paraphrasing the adapted text for a new medium. The primary task and main responsibility of film adaptation is thus shared by the screenwriter and the director. ―The other artists involved may be inspired by the adapted text, but their responsibility is more to the screenplay and thus to the film as an autonomous work of art.‖83

77 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 79-81. 78 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 81. 79 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 81-82. 80 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 82. 81 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 83. 82 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 85. 83 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 85.

Walker confirms the importance ―of all the roles of people involved in bringing a film to the screen‖84 and emphasizes crucial roles of the producer and the director in the collaborative process,

the . . . screenplay is merely the blueprint. Each of these people, these artists, will uniquely interpret their contribution. Some may read the original novel for flavor. Others may see no point since the mediums are so different. The producer‘s fiscal guidance and the director‘s leadership are central to the feel of the film.85

3.4. HOW? (Audiences)

―Pleasure of accessibility drives not only adaptation‘s commercialization but also its role in education. . . . Teachers and their students provide one of the largest audiences for adaptations.‖86

Some adapters consider their target audience when creating the adaptation which might cause changes in a story to become more appropriate for this audience. The film has also definitely broader audience than a novel and this must be taken into account as well.87

3.4.1. Knowing and Unknowing Audiences

The adaptation interpretation varies with different knowledge of the audiences.88 In order to experience adaptation as an adaptation, it is essential to know the adapted text. Otherwise the audience perceives the adaptation as any other work. ―. . . adaptation usually signals its identity overtly: often for legal reasons, a work is openly announced to be ―based on‖ or ―adapted from‖ a specific prior work or works.‖89

Provided the audience is familiar with the adapted work they can have an interesting experience while filling the gaps in the adaptation by what they remember from the adapted work. However, for an adaptation to be an autonomous work it

84 Walker, Write Now Workshops Series, vol. 3, Intro to Screenwriting, 58. 85 Walker, Write Now Workshops Series, vol. 3, Intro to Screenwriting, 58. 86 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 117. 87 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 118. 88 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 125. 89 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 120-121.

28 must make sense either with previous knowledge of the adapted text or without this knowledge. ―Nevertheless, it is probably easier for an adapter to forge a relationship with an audience that is not overly burdened with affection or nostalgia for the adapted text. Without foreknowledge . . . the director will have greater freedom—and control.‖90 Knowing audience is no longer able to see the adapted text in the same light after coming into contact with the adaptation. They are influenced by adapter‘s interpretation and recreation of the prior work. ―In the move from print to performance, in particular, characters and places become incarnate in a way that conditions how we imagine them in a literary work when we return to reread it. Our imaginations are permanently colonized by the visual and aural world of the films.‖91

Adapters have difficult task to satisfy both knowing and unknowing audiences. There are also other aspects causing different experience of the audience such as ―the various media‘s diverse modes of audience involvement and of their degrees and kinds of immersion‖ which will be discussed in the following paragraphs.92

3.4.2. Modes of Engagement Revisited

Each mode of engagement differs in mental involvement of the audience and it is important for adapters to consider this aspect when making an adaptation into specific medium.93

Telling requires of its audience conceptual work; showing calls on its perceptual decoding abilities. In the first, we imagine and visualize a world from black marks on white pages as we read; in the second, our imagination are preempted as we perceive and then give meaning to a world of images, sounds, and words seen and heard on the stage or screen.94

―Each of these different modes demands of its audience its own decoding processes. In reading, we gather details of narrative, character, context, and the like

90 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 121. 91 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 122. 92 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 128. 93 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 130. 94 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 130.

29 gradually and sequentially; in seeing a film or play or musical, we perceive multiple objects, relations, and significant signs simultaneously. . . .‖95

3.4.3. Kinds and Degrees of Immersion

There are significant differences between modes of engaging with the audience and even between media within the same mode of engagement, particularly ―in how we become immersed in an adapted story—physically, intellectually, and psychologically.‖96

―Knowing or unknowing, we experience adaptations across media differently than we do adaptations within the same medium. . . . the context in which we experience the adaptation—cultural, social, historical—is another important factor in the meaning and significance we grant to this ubiquitous palimpsestic form.‖

3.5. WHERE? WHEN? (Contexts)

The fact that the context is another important aspect affecting reception of adapted texts and adaptations was suggested by Malcolm Bradbury, in Hutcheon‘s words:

. . . , even without any temporal updating or any alterations to national or cultural setting, it can take very little time for context to change how a story is received. Not only what is (re)accentuated but more importantly how a story can be (re)interpreted can alter radically. An adaptation, like the work it adapts, is always framed in a context—a time and place, a society and a culture; it does not exist in a vacuum.97

There are always ―possible causes of change in the process of adapting made by the demands of form, the individual adapter, the particular audience, and now the contexts of reception and creation.‖98 The context also includes ―the materiality involved in the adaptation‘s medium and mode of engagement—the kind of print in a book, the size of the television screen.‖99 Hutcheon also mentions ―elements of presentation and reception, such as the amount and kind of ‗hype‘ an adaptation gets:

95 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 130. 96 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 133. 97 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 142. 98 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 142. 99 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 143.

30 its advertising, press coverage, and reviews. The celebrity status of the director or stars is also an important element of its reception context.‖100

Whatever significant changes might have appeared during the time between realization of adapted text and adaptation, it is not certain that the adapters will consider such changes. However the adapters are aware of this fact and they usually update the adaptation to fit to the time of reception in order ―to shorten the gap between works created earlier and contemporary audiences. . .‖ 101 Nonetheless, ―. . . the adapter works in one context, but the meaning he or she establishes within that frame of reference can change over time.‖102 It might result in later incomprehension of the audience if there is an immense gap between context of creation and context of reception.103 In this case it could be convenient for the audience to consider the time of creation to better comprehend the work. What might also influence the interpretation of the audience is their possible knowledge of author‘s life or intentions when creating the work of art.

The next chapter will deal with the first analysis out of three in this thesis. All three analyses will be comparing literary works by Hanif Kureishi to their film adaptations.

100 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 143. 101 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 145-146. 102 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 148. 103 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 149.

4. MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE

The first work analysed in this thesis is My Beautiful Laundrette written by Hanif Kureishi. It is an interesting case since the film cannot be called an adaptation of the script. Screenplays are not considered to be literature. They are written in order to be filmed. However, comparison of My Beautiful Laundrette in the form of script to the film might be interesting as well. As already mentioned earlier, Peter Lev suggested that it might be interesting to discuss screenplays as an art form in itself in his study ―The Future of Adaptation Studies.‖ The screenplay was written by Hanif Kureishi and the film was based on this script and directed by Stephen Frears.

4.1. Writing a Screenplay and Writing a Novel

Sally Walker suggests that ―writing a novel takes one mindset and creating a screenplay an entirely different one. Novelists must paint everything the reader is going to imagine. The screenwriter will only paint what the collaborators need to imagine. This is an important distinction. . . . The intimacy between writer-to-reader is lost.―104 In the fiction prose, ―the voice and style of a writer‖ and ―beauty of the word‖ are important. ―Screenplays are not literature. Screenplays are the crisp blueprints that will guide the various craftsmen and artists who will translate the written word into a visual medium.‖105

4.2. The Background and the Origin of the Screenplay and Film

Hanif Kureishi wrote the first draft of the script overnight. Kureishi was primarily a playwright and My Beautiful Laundrette was his first film. Therefore the first draft included elements of stage play. There were many dialogues which were reduced in the next draft in favour of more action. Laundrette was intended to be shot for TV Channel Four not for cinema. It was a low-budget film. Kureishi was glad for this, because there was no commercial pressure on the team of film makers. Kureishi claimed that a great thing about TV drama was presenting contemporary issues to broader audience then, on the contrary, in the theatre. At first, Kureishi intended Laundrette to be an epic. He wanted to begin with scenes in the fifties with Omar and

104 Walker, Write Now Workshops Series, vol. 3, Intro to Screenwriting, 57. 105 Walker, Write Now Workshops Series, vol. 3, Intro to Screenwriting, 58.

Johnny as little boys growing up. Kureishi wanted the audience to observe ―arrival of an immigrant family in England and showing their progress to the present.‖106 All this would be difficult to achieve in a single TV drama. Therefore it was set merely into the present referring to the past. The intention of ―the film was to be an amusement, despite its references to racism, unemployment and Thatcherism. Irony is the modern mode, a way of commenting on bleakness and cruelty without falling into dourness and didacticism,‖ according to Kureishi.107 There is a few interesting facts from shooting mentioned by Kureishi. The best one could be the fact that the laundrette which was built for the film was so authentic ―that people came in off the street with their washing.‖108

The version of the script used for this analysis is the last draft before shooting. Although Kureishi added and cut a few scenes during shooting it was not reworked for publishing just for the case of such analyses comparing the script with the film.109

The script was first published in 1986; the edition used for this thesis was published in 2000. ―My Beautiful Laundrette was first shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival in autumn 1985. The film opened at the London Film Festival on 15 November and was subsequently released at London cinemas on 16 November 1985.‖110

The film was a success, however Kureishi could not know that in advance and he had to be courageous enough to write about Asian people, despite being discouraged by others. As Kureishi claimed in the interview for Yousaf in 2001,

I am . . . pleased that works like Buddha and My Beautiful Laundrette helped to open the publisher‘s doors for other writers because you forget that when I started writing people asked ‗Why are you writing about Asians? Who is interested in minorities?‘ You can‘t believe it now but when My Beautiful Laundrette came out it proved it was possible to make a film about Asian people that other people wanted to see: people went to see it and it was popular and made money. It is hard to get into

106 Hanif Kureishi, introduction to My Beautiful Laundrette, by Hanif Kureishi (London: Faber and Faber, 2000), 4-5. 107 Kureishi, introduction, 5. 108 Kureishi, introduction, 6. 109 Kureishi, introduction, 6. 110 Kureishi, introduction, 7.

that position in the first place. I remember applying for a bursary and being told, ‗You are going to be in writers‘ ghetto if you write about Asian people. Don‘t do that.‘ It was really insulting and offensive. So it is important to me, and I think to others who get through to publishers now.111

At that time, it was difficult to write not only about Asians but also about gays. Set in Thatcherite eighties, the topic was controversial and thus important to be mentioned as Kureishi puts it,

let‘s say being gay in London today is not like being gay in Afghanistan so it depends where you locate the characters. During the 1980s, Thatcher, it seemed to a lot of us, was trying to introduce, in shorthand, ‗old-fashioned morals.‘ Therefore, transgressive desire seemed very important to write about then. So you combine two gay blokes running a laundrette, which is the entrepreneurship she wanted, and you make it transgressive.112

4.3. Plot Overview

The film observes the development of the main protagonist Omar who is of Pakistani and English origin. He makes use of the opportunity and rebuilds the laundrette which was entrusted to him by his uncle Nasser. Omar‘s English friend from childhood skinhead Johnny helps him to run the laundrette since he is fed up with just hanging about. Johnny becomes Omar‘s employee and a lover. The film also monitors the fates of the rest of Omar‘s family and some English squatters. It refers to racism, Thatcherism and classism with humour.

4.4. The Reception of the Film

The initial responses to Laundrette were controversial. Kureishi was criticized by some members of his family and by many Asians as for the way they have been

111 Nahem Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2002), 9. 112 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 21-22.

34 represented in the film. Kureishi defended himself and said that he is not going to make PR to Asians by providing lies or favouring them in his works.113

Despite controversies, the film was successful and changed lives of the whole team as the producer Tim Bevan noted, ―our lives changed, literally, that night when the film was screened. It was the beginning of Dan‘s stardom, as it were. . . . It established Stephen as a major filmmaking talent. Hanif‘s first movie was a success.‖114 In addition, Kureishi was certainly pleased by Oscar nomination for the best screenplay of 1985.115

There were all kinds of reviews. First of all, reviews which are praising the film will be introduced. David Robinson was surprised by the fact that the film concerns serious issues with such ease that watching it is an amusing experience:

The marvel of the film is that it deals with such tough issues – class, race, sex, corruption, ignorance, prejudice, Britain here and now – yet remains not only watchable but very comic; that it never compromises, yet proposes no ready-made villains or victims, unless (fulfilling both functions) it is the hopeless little knot of National Front punks who hang around dismally waiting for something or someone to smash.

. . . The boys still have each other. Kureishi and Frears, without self- consciousness or shame, leave us with one of the most delicate and touching love scenes in contemporary cinema.116

―Several reviewers praised Kureishi for his sympathetic but complex portrait of immigrant life.‖117 Another subject of praise in many reviews was the portrayal of gay relationship between Omar and Johnny. Warnecke‘s (Omar) and Day-Lewis‘s (Johnny) performances were also often appreciated, for instance, by Dan Mancini:

Omar's gay relationship with Johnny could have been rote symbolism for the young Pakistani's affection for his adopted home contrasted by his willingness to exploit it. But Warnecke and Day-Lewis bring a warmth

113 Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 26. 114 Tim Bevan, personal interview, 8 July 1994, in Kenneth C. Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998), 41. 115 Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 41. 116 David Robinson, ―Only Sentiment,‖ Sight and Sound, 55 (Winter 1985-6), 67, in Susie Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 28. 117 Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 29.

and honesty that infuses the political aspects of the screenplay with real humanity. The relationship feels true.118

There were also criticizing reviews, especially those of Asian reviewers. Mahmood Jamal argued that Kureishi made cheap stereotypes for English audience‘s amusement.

What is surprising about the film is that it expresses all the prejudices that this society has felt about Asians and Jews – that they are money grabbing, scheming, sex-crazed people. It‘s not surprising therefore, that it was popular with European audiences. It says everything they thought about us but were afraid to say.119

The final excerpt will aptly conclude the reviews as it is the defence of Laundrette by Salman Rushdie who stated:

I would defend My Beautiful Laundrette against all colours, even though it will upset some Asians. In fact there are some fat cat Asian businessmen that I would not mind upsetting. Even though, more seriously, some white viewers will find in it material which will satisfy their wish to dislike Asians … The reason for my defence is that there is nothing in it that is imaginatively false, and because it seems to me that the real gift which we can offer our communities is not the creation of a set of stereotyped positive images to counteract the stereotyped negative ones, but simply the gift of treating black and Asian characters in a way that white writers seem very rarely able to do, that is to say as fully realized human beings, as complex creatures, good, bad, bad, good. To do anything less is to be kept captive by the racist prejudices of the majority, and that complexity is what Kureishi‘s script strives for.120

118 Dan Mancini, ―My Beautiful Laundrette,‖ DVD Verdict, September 5, 2003, http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/mybeautifullaundrette.php. 119 Mahmood Jamal, ―Dirty Linen,‖ Artrage (Autumn 1987). Reprinted in Kobena Mercer, ed., Black Film, British Cinema (London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1988), 21-2., in Susie Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 31. 120 Salman Rushdie, ―Minority Literatures in a Multi-cultural Society,‖ in Kirsten Holst Petersen and Anna Rutherford, eds., Displaced Persons, (Sydney: Dangaroo, 1987), 40-1, in Susie Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 34.

4.5. Comparison of Selected Aspects and Scenes

At the beginning of the film, there are sound effects used together with initial credits in a particularly apt way. The film title and names of its creators are alternately displayed on the screen. Every change of the name is accompanied by the sound of a spinning washing machine and also graphic spinning of the name. There are also sounds associated with bubbles. While the last name disappears, the sound of the water can be heard running off the plughole. These sounds are used again with the final credits at the end of the film together with music. The sounds benefit the film in the form of engaging more senses simultaneously. This is an obvious advantage of the showing mode (in this case the film) in contrary to the telling mode (in this case the script). Similar advantage of the telling mode happens with music which has the ability to culminate the scenes which are suspenseful and dramatic. There are no descriptions or instructions of the sound and music in the script, therefore it is a value added of the film.

In film, Omar‘s father (Papa in the script) talks to Nasser on the phone. At the beginning it is not certain who the person he talks to is. In the script it is obviously Nasser. In the film, the other side on the phone is not heard. However, it is written in the screenplay under sign VO i. e. voice over. During the conversation it is revealed in both film and script that Nasser is Omar‘s uncle.121

"In this damn country which we hate and love, you can get anything you want. It's all spread out and available. That's why I believe in England. Only you have to know how to squeeze the tits of the system,"122 says Nasser to Omar in both the film and script. This is an important reference to not only Nasser‘s business attitude but all Pakistanis who take the opportunity and do business instead of being on the dole.

When Papa warns Omar not to get too involved with his uncle, the scene differs in the script compared to the film. The underlined reply in the following transcription was omitted in the film, but seems to be quite significant with its reference to racism.

PAPA: Don‘t get too involved with that crook. You‘ve got to study. We are under siege by the white man. For us education is power.

121 Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette, 12. 122 Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette, 17.

(OMAR shakes his head at his father.)

Don‘t let me down.123

In Nasser‘s house is a party. When Omar comes to the room of his uncle, there are several Pakistani friends, one Englishman, and American. In the screenplay there are names of every character, in the film however there is no need to know all the names since all the characters can be seen. They are talking and at the end of the scene, a significant part of conversation concerning Thatcherite eighties is omitted in the film,

ENGLISHMAN: Maybe Omar‘s father didn‘t make chances for himself. Look at you, Salim, five times richer and more powerful than me.

SALIM: Five times? Ten, at least.

ENGLISHMAN: In my country! The only prejudice in England is against the useless.

SALIM: It‘s rather tilted in favour of the useless I would think. The only positive discrimination they have here.

(The PAKISTANIS in the room laugh at this. The ENGLISHMAN looks annoyed. DICK O‘DONNELL smiles sympathetically at the ENGLISHMAN.)124

On the other hand, in the film, there are some added lines. Englishman offering a drink to Omar and Salim expressing his belief in Omar:

ENGLISHMAN: Can I make you a drink?

OMAR shakes his head at ENGLISHMAN.

NASSER: Make him a man, first!

SALIM: Give him a drink, Zaki. I like him. He‘s our future.

(SALIM waves at OMAR and OMAR smiles at him and nods.)125

One significant scene outside the laundrette was enriched and little bit different in the film. And it was one of the controversial scenes arousing discussions. While in

123 Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette, 18-19. 124 Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette, 21. 125 My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen Frears, (1985), DVD.

38 the script, Johnny and Omar are painting the outside of the laundrette, English gangsters are watching them. After Johnny finishes the job in the script, he just nods goodbye to Omar and walks away. In film however, the scene is one of the crucial ones in the entire film. Merely Johnny is painting outside and then Omar walks out of laundrette and gives him money. Afterwards, Omar hugs him and Johnny licks Omar‘s neck, smiles amusedly and walks away. The gangsters see them hugging but cannot see that Johnny licks Omar‘s neck as this is taken by camera from the opposite side. This is one of the moments praised by some critics as causally treating homosexuality and condemned by others.126

Omar‘s development was immense. At the beginning, he hardly speaks and seems shy. At the end he is self-confident businessman. In the script, there is also interesting change in attitude of barman Tariq to Omar. Tariq despises Omar at the beginning. At the end, on the contrary, Tariq‘s attitude to Omar is rather servile. Tariq‘s character was omitted in the film. Omar‘s strongest statement in both the script and the film might be:

OMAR (to JOHNNY): I want big money. I‘m not gonna be beat down by this country. When we were at school, you and your lot kicked me all around the place. And what are you doing now? Washing my floor. That‘s how I like it. Now get to work. Get to work I said. Or you‘re fired!127

Overall, several lines from the script concerning race, class and Thatcher economics were cut in the film. Yet, these issues were still present. The film is more enriching experience than reading the script since the script is merely a blueprint for film makers. Especially the dramatic scenes take a lot of time to read through, but in the film everything happens very quickly and it is hence more suspenseful. It was interesting experience, however, to compare the script to the film. I appreciate actor‘s performances, especially those of Daniel Day-Lewis as Johnny, Gordon Warnecke as Omar, Roshan Seth as Papa, and Derrick Branche as Salim.

126 Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette, 39; My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen Frears (1985), DVD. 127 Kureishi, My Beautiful Laundrette, 51; My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen Frears (1985), DVD.

5. THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA

5.1. Plot Overview

The plot is the same in both the book and the television series. It follows adventures of Karim Amir, a teenager who has grown up in Bromley, suburbs of South London. His father Haroon immigrated to England from India in his twenties to study there. His mother Margaret is English. Therefore Karim feels to be somewhere in-between these two heritages and he strives to find his identity throughout the novel. He escapes to London from the suburbs and becomes an actor.

5.2. The Background and the Origin of the Novel

Kureishi‘s first novel was published in 1990 and won him the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel. The novel The Buddha of Suburbia raised many discussions about to what extent it is autobiographic novel. Kureishi answered,

there‘s one difference, one main difference between me and that guy in The Buddha, which is that when I was young, from the age of fourteen, I fully knew that I wanted to be a writer. And so I had a great sense of purpose and direction in my life all through those years. I was very strong-willed: get out of the suburbs—be a writer—be educated—make something of yourself. The boy in The Buddha is much more of a drifter. He has that side of me which is opportunistic and up for anything, but he doesn‘t have, and never can have—I didn‘t give him—the fucking discipline that I have, the sense of purpose that I have. That‘s the main difference.128

5.3. The Reception of the Novel

Some reviewers were full of praise for Kureishi, however many reviews criticized Kureishi for bad representation of Asians in Britain, violence, promiscuous main character, etc. Many reviewers noted that they found the first half of the book much

128 Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 74.

40 more appealing and entertaining than the second half. The setting of ―In the Suburbs‖ was according to critics better crafted than the ―In the City.‖129

Another element which was frequently acclaimed by reviewers was the evocative period detail. Fineberg declared, ―mood and time is adeptly evoked without sentimentality.‖ Robin Epstein corroborates Kureishi‘s ―wry appreciation . . . of fashion, literature, music, politics and spirituality.‖130

Hermione Lee stated that the novel is ―one of the sharpest satires on race relations in this country.‖ Similarly, Michiko Kakutani claimed in the New York Times that it is at once ―a traditional comedy of manners‖ and ―a scathing satire on race relations in Britain.‖131 Robin Epstein from Courier Journal observed that the novel ―rightly undermines the impression some might have mistakenly picked up about British Muslims from the calls for the head of Salman Rushdie. . . . They are far from being a fundamentalist monolith of book burners.‖132

5.4. The Background and the Origin of the Film Adaptation

Firstly, Kureishi was not willing to write the screenplay adaptation of the novel. At last, he made an agreement with BBC for television serial. The script was written by Kureishi and the director Roger Michell. The process was difficult for Kureishi not only because his father had died a few months before they started to work on the screenplay.133 Kureishi remarked,

in my novel I could really fill the characters out much more. I had unlimited time and space. With the TV Buddha, I knew I had to be concerned with plot. The book had sold one hundred and fifty thousand copies in paperback. Five million people would be my TV audience. It was completely different. So it had to be pretty direct. I just wrote—I wrote it with the director—but I just wrote what was in the book. At first they had tried to be clever with it in various ways, but it didn‘t work. I just did it straight. It‘s the same as the book. It was very fucking difficult.

129 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 61-62. 130 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 64. 131 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 60. 132 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 61. 133 Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 105-106.

I never wanted to do it. In principle I was all for somebody else adapting my book to film too, . . . but only if they did it right.134

5.5. The Reception of the Film Adaptation

Kureishi himself admitted that Roger Michell did a great job adapting Buddha for television.135

After the final episode of Buddha was screened, Tessa Boase reported in the Daily Telegraph the following response from a London-based Asian town councilor: That series has done untold damage to the British perception of Asians living in this country. The older generation has been shown to be narrow minded and old fashioned, and the younger generation outrageously rebellious and offensively promiscuous. There is no middle ground. What is worse, people are applying these caricatures to Asians in the Nineties. Thing are not so extreme.136

Greg Quill from Toronto Star expressed his enthusiasm about the television series, ―rarely in television have we had the chance to absorb a piece of original entertainment as complex, as wry and satirical, as beautifully executed, as good- natured as . . . The Buddha of Suburbia. Don‘t miss a minute. The Buddha of Suburbia is a rare TV event.‖137

According to a TV review, like many teenagers the character is vain, arrogant and self-centered. In the novel these shortcomings are redeemed by the humour, honesty, and unerring sense of irony with which Karim homes in on the more ludicrous elements of the ‗70s culture. The detachment that made Karim such an unusually objective narrator in the novel makes for a rather unengaging character on the screen. Television can‘t put us into his mind and whereas Karim is at the heart of the novel, in the TV version he‘s in danger of being swamped by the many

134 Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 114-115. 135 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 17. 136 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 77. 137 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 77-78.

outlandish people around him. We‘re not looking at them through his eyes, we‘re looking at him and them from the outside.138

Reviews varied a lot, however, the criticism in media made good promotion to the TV adaptation, resulting in broader audience and increased ratings. Hanif Kureishi became better-known and it brought new perspective on his work.139

5.6. Comparison of Selected Aspects and Scenes

First of all, the novel is in the telling mode of engagement in which the readers are informed about characters thoughts and feelings. This advantage besides the writer‘s language and style is lost in the showing mode. Therefore viewers have to guess what is in character‘s minds either from facial expressions or gestures. Close-up is used quite often in The Buddha series for that purpose, but it cannot substitute for Karim‘s contemplating which is sometimes important for the story, or just amusing. When Karim‘s father Haroon tells Karim that he is appearing again, both are very excited and in both the novel and the series the dialogue is almost identical. Nevertheless, in the book the reader is made aware of Karim‘s meditating on the subject,

he was right – I was looking forward to this second appearance of his. I did enjoy the activity, but there was something important I had to know. I wanted to see if Dad was a charlatan or if there was anything true in what he was doing. After all, he‘d impressed and then done the difficult thing – knocked Charlie out. His magic has worked on them and I‘d given him the ‗God‘ moniker, but with reservations. He wasn‘t yet fully entitled to the name. What I wanted to see was whether, as he started to blossom, Dad really did have anything to offer other people, or if he would turn out to be merely another suburban eccentric.140

The subjective first person narration in the novel was difficult to transform to the series according to Michell. Nonetheless, Michell thinks they succeeded without applying the voice over device. They had ―to accommodate the point of view of the

138 Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 116. 139 Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 120. 140 Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), 22.

43 camera, which records what Karim sees.‖ Critics split in opinions if the novel‘s point of view was preserved or lost.141

The music is another important aspect. Kureishi makes many references to the seventies music. Nonetheless, it is not easy for the viewer, who did not live in the seventies, to imagine the songs in the telling mode. On the contrary, music can support the atmosphere in all showing media. Therefore it is a huge advantage of the of television series to have soundtrack by David Bowie. Bowie‘s contribution was much praised by critics. The initial scene is full of energy which is achieved by Roshan Seth‘s performance and Bowie‘s song ―Fill Your Heart.‖ The viewer is thrown right into the action of the film. There is no information about character‘s past. And that leads to the next element of comparison—exposition.

Exposition is characteristic of telling media. Showing media can use devices such as ―scrolling information at the opening, [voice over], the montage [series of shots] glimpses, or depicting a very brief backstory scene.‖142 None of these devices is used in the series. During the novel, there are many expositions of the characters‘ past. At the beginning of the second chapter, for example, the reader is familiarised with Karim‘s father Haroon growing up in Bombay and subsequent studies in England where he stayed and met Karim‘s mother, an English woman.143 The first scene of both the book and the film begins with Haroon coming home from work in a lively mood. However, the exposition of the main protagonist Karim precedes this scene in the book.

My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost. I am often considered to be a funny kind of Englishman, a new breed as it were, having emerged from two old histories. But I don‘t care – Englishman I am (though not proud of it), from the South London suburbs and going somewhere. Perhaps it is the odd mixture of continents and blood, of here and there, of belonging and not, that makes me restless and easily bored. Or perhaps it was being brought up in the suburbs that did it. Anyway, why search the inner room when it‘s enough to say that I was looking for trouble, any kind of movement, action and

141 Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 114. 142 Walker, Write Now Workshops Series, vol. 3, Intro to Screenwriting, 57. 143 Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia, 23-25.

sexual interest I could find, because things were so gloomy, so slow and heavy, in our family, I don‘t know why. Quite frankly, it was all getting me down and I was ready for anything.

Then one day everything changed. In the morning things were one way and by bedtime another. I was seventeen.144

In the telling mode, the readers use their imagination for a mental picture of characters. In the showing mode, the viewers do not apply their imagination as they are immediately confronted with every character impersonated by particular actor. It might result in disappointment of knowing audience that is no longer able to see the adapted text in the same way as before watching the adaptation. Therefore it is easier for the adapters to satisfy unknowing audience. However, adapters must satisfy the expectations of both knowing and unknowing audience. Precisely chosen cast might be good precondition of success. Cast in The Buddha of Suburbia was praised by many critics and actor‘s performances were significant for the success of the TV series.145

144 Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia, 3. 145 Kaleta, Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller, 108, 110.

6. INTIMACY

The novella Intimacy (1998) and the film of the same name (2001) do not have much in common as the film is merely loosely based on the novella and the short story ―Nightlight‖ from the collection Love in a Blue Time (1997) both written by the British writer Hanif Kureishi. Both, the book and the film raised controversial debates and reviews. The reason might be the fact that each work was created by a controversial artist. The novella Intimacy and the short story ―Nightlight‖ was written by Kureishi who is controversial for his poignant and honest style of writing about themes such as race, social politics, sex, drugs, gender, sexuality, etc. In addition, Kureishi‘s works very often raise questions and consequent discussions about to what extent they are autobiographic. Patrice Cheréau (1944-2013) was a French writer and director ―regarded by some as the enfant terrible of French theatre, with productions that were highly charged, highly sexual and highly controversial.‖146

6.1. The Background and the Origin of the Written Works

The novella Intimacy was written by Kureishi and was published by Faber and Faber in 1998. It falls into his middle works which do not focus on teenagers or young adults as Kureishi‘s previous works. The middle works such as Love in a Blue Time (1997), Intimacy, and Midnight All Day (1999) often deal with inner worlds of its main characters. The issue of race is in the majority of stories either overshadowed or totally avoided. The issue here is rather midlife crisis of the main characters. Susie Thomas aptly described the atmosphere in the books as ―an overall impression of stasis and claustrophobia, it is because many characters seem trapped by domesticity, torn between the desire to go and the responsibility to stay.‖147

―Kureishi himself, however, sees his midlife work differently: not as a chronicle of domestic misery but as a challenge to emotional orthodoxies.‖148 The influence and inspiration also came from American authors such as Salinger, Plath, Roth, and

146 ―Patrice Chéreau,‖ Telegraph, October 8, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10365020/Patrice-Chereau.html. 147 Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 133. 148 Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 134.

Bellow in the form of the confessional monologue.149 ―In an interview from June 2001, Kureishi explains more experimental and more economical use of language of his middle works, Intimacy in particular:

It is quite difficult, particularly when you are an established writer, to decide how far you can go in terms of your relationship with the audience. I liked Intimacy being a rough book in that sense; the cruelty, the fragmentation, the lack of smoothing out or over. People have said the book is so cruel and horrible, the people in it are so nasty and I say ‗well, that‘s what it‘s like.‘ I wanted the book to be an experience. If I wrote a book now about a relationship that split up ten years ago, it would probably be overworked and too thought-out. I wanted to capture the roughness. The style you use has to reflect what is going on in the mind at the time of writing.150

6.2. The Reception of the Novella

The principal cause of inconsistent acceptance of the novella Intimacy might be in the main character, Jay, who the reader cannot really sympathize with. At least most of the reviewers did not. It is then quite complicated for some reviewers, who evidently contempt Jay, to overcome Jay‘s personality and praise the novella. Many reviewers criticize Kureishi for Intimacy being ―lazy‖ and ―sluggish‖. Laura Cumming from Guardian stated, for instance, that it lacks ―the energetic cockiness Kureishi had in his youth.‖151 Many reviewers also praise his early works for concerning race issues. Such approaches, however, have failed to consider that it is not possible for the writer to use the same themes and style over and over again. People grow up and change during the entire life. And this can be supported by Kureishi himself who commented on that matter in an interview given Robert McCrum from Guardian, "I'd been this kid with long hair, hanging around in London, taking drugs and having sex with girls. Suddenly, I was getting up at seven

149 Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 136. 150 Nahem Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2002), 22-23. 151 Laura Cumming, ―Charity ends at home: Intimate? Pathological more like. Laura Cumming on Hanif Kureishi‘s toxic creation,‖ Guardian, May 9, 1998, http://www.theguardian.com/books/1998/may/09/fiction.hanifkureishi.

47 in the morning and taking my kids to the park. My life switched. I'd become an adult. These kids were looking to me as a father and I was responsible. I could no longer write books from the point of view of a 17-year-old.‖152 And the change in one‘s life is incessant as Kureishi admits, "that's what's great about being a writer. . . . Every 10 years you become somebody else."153 Therefore it is important to consider writer‘s professional development and personal experience when comparing their new works to the former ones. Cumming literally eats Kureishi alive in her review: Kureishi insists that this is a work of fiction, and he should know. But at its core, Intimacy reads like pure pathology, the rage and boredom and cruelty of a man who has fallen out of love. When Jay says that 'there are some fucks for which a person would have their partner and children drown in a freezing sea', the line is surely not an illustration, but the unmediated voice of resentful destruction itself. To pretend that this is part of some larger bid for existential freedom as Kureishi does, underpinning Jay's specious philosophising with references to Sartre, is to tell lies beyond the frame of the novel.154

Such review as the one by Cumming was not an exception. After Intimacy’s publication, it was a difficult time for Kureishi. It seemed that nobody is able to see the work as an art separately from Kureishi‘s life issues especially leaving his two sons and a partner.155 Kureishi expressed his disappointment about reviews of Intimacy in an interview given Nahem Yousaf in 2001:

I think some reviewers were caught up in the furore around Intimacy and haven‘t yet looked fairly and squarely at the book. Nor have they yet taken into consideration the fact that I was playing a literary game. I consciously wrote Intimacy in the form of a confession and was also

152 Robert McCrum, ―Hanif Kureishi Interview: ‗Every 10 years you become someone else‘,‖ Guardian, January 19, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/19/hanif-kureishi- interview-last-word. 153 McCrum, ―Hanif Kureishi Interview: ‗Every 10 years you become someone else‘,‖ Guardian, January 19, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/19/hanif-kureishi-interview-last-word. 154 Cumming, ―Charity ends at home: Intimate? Pathological more like. Laura Cumming on Hanif Kureishi‘s toxic creation,‖ Guardian, May 9, 1998, http://www.theguardian.com/books/1998/may/09/fiction.hanifkureishi. 155 Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 137; Buchanan, Hanif Kureishi, 31; Moore-Gilbert, Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers, 15. For more details regarding Kureishi‘s life see chapter Hanif Kureishi‘s Biography.

aware that it might be read as ‗Hanif Kureishi telling the truth about a relationship break-up.‘ That too is a literary construct: it is artificial. All of one‘s work is autobiographical to the extent that it reflects one‘s interests. But the book hasn‘t yet been read as a move in a literary game which is quite disappointing. It operates as a construct—written in the first person, constructed as a confession—and this is the basis on which it should begin to be evaluated. I wanted a book people could play with in that way. It is a text, not me. I am not the text.156

―I did a reading in Leeds recently and there were a few men who were talking about being separated from their wives and children and of the relationships they try—and sometimes fail—to build with them both. It did give me a sense that people might look for that stuff in my work,‖157 says Kureishi in the interview given Yousaf. It can be assumed then that there are definitely some readers who sympathize with Jay. A professional praise came from Julie Myerson‘s review in Mail on Sunday, ―it is by far the most astute and painful dissection of male sexual restlessness that I've read― and from Suzanne Moore who ―applauded the novel‖ in the Guardian ―as an example of ‗male honesty‘.‖158 There is one statement in the book, asserted by Jay, which caused the strongest objections of many reviewers, for example David Sexton in Evening Standard and Laura Cumming in Guardian. And that is, ―there are some fucks for which a person would have their partner and children drown in a freezing sea.‖159 Such an immense attention given to this statement is definitely justifiable. This is the point where the reader might lose the last bit of sympathy with Jay or not. It is really up to every individual person of the diverse readership. Some readers might appreciate the ―roughness‖ of the book which was the aim of Kureishi. He wanted to depict the transgression of desire.160

156 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 25. 157 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 23-24. 158 Suzanne Moore, ―Why I Applaud the Books of Men Who Tell It Like It Is,‖ Inedependent, May 15, 1998), 21, quoted in Susie Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 141.; David Sexton, Evening Standard, May 14, 1998, quoted in Susie Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 141. 159 Thomas, Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism, 141-142; Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), 120; Laura Cumming, ―Charity ends at home: Intimate? Pathological more like. Laura Cumming on Hanif Kureishi‘s toxic creation,‖ Guardian. 160 Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide, 20-23.

6.3. The Background and the Origin of the Film Adaptation

Film Intimacy won the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox) at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2001.161

The film Intimacy is loosely based on the novella Intimacy and the short story ―Nightlight‖ by Hanif Kureishi. The French director Patrice Chéreau firstly wanted to adapt merely the novella. It was not possible however as it is generally particularly difficult to depict the thoughts and internal monologues from the book in performance media. The idea how to continue came early as Chéreau said in the interview for Indiewire, ―and then I discovered a very short story called "Nightlight." But after five pages, this story stops, so we had to invent what comes next. So this was all created, working with Hanif in London and working with my scriptwriter in Paris, who is a woman. This is a huge advantage, because it changed the point of view.‖162 This point of view was changed thanks to French scriptwriter Anne-Louise Trividic. The film is 120 minutes long drama with cold and gloomy atmosphere as Kureishi aptly depicts it, ―the film is an adult film. I always thought it should have a 35 certificate! It is quite a dark film, not a film for eighteen-year-olds eating popcorn. Films at the moment seem to be so formulaic. When you see a film like this, it feels dark, strange, and very unusual.‖163 There are not many characters which is another uncommon aspect. It is an intimate film. First challenge of the director was to create a story of only two or three people. And he admits that it was necessary to capitalize on his own experience, ―for example, all the mistakes of the male character, I think I've personally done them, already, all of them. I know what it means to follow somebody or to deny you're in love with somebody.‖164 And the male character, Jay, who is often blamed among other things for his self-destructive behaviour was performed by an extraordinary British actor Mark Rylance. Nevertheless, at the beginning, Rylance was offered just a supporting role. After having seen the Rylance‘s outstanding performance of ―the Queen of the Nile‖ in ―Antony and

161 ―IMDb,‖ International Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256103/awards?ref_=tt_awd. 162 Anthony Kaufman, ―INTERVIEW: Night Lights; Patrice Chereau Probes ‗Intimacy‘,‖ Indiewire, October 16, 2001, http://www.indiewire.com/article/interview_night_lights_patrice_chereau_probes_intimacy. 163 Nahem Yousaf, Hanif Kureishi's the Buddha of Suburbia: A Reader's Guide (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2002), 20. 164 Kaufman, ―INTERVIEW: Night Lights; Patrice Chereau Probes ‗Intimacy‘,‖ Indiewire.

Cleopatra at the Globe‖, Chereau came to Rylance and said that he would prefer him to play the leading part of Jay.165

6.4. The Reception of the Film Adaptation

There is a large number of diametrically opposed opinions on various matters. Either the film scenes seem artificial or authentic to critics and reviewers. Timothy Spall, playing the part of Claire‘s husband, is castigated by some critics and praised by others. It is difficult to find a review which does not spend the most of the time dealing with sexual scenes. For some critics, the raw sexual scenes were portrayed authentically as Anthony Quin from The Independent puts it, ―Patrice Chéreau is good on flesh. He understands its hues, its texture, its hideous vulnerability.―166 Yet, Quin is not only commending Chéreau, ―in mainstream drama, however, the documentary element is disruptive, hauling the viewer outside the boundaries of fiction. A tacit contract between audience and actor has been breached.‖167 Nonetheless the aim of Chéreau was not to make artificial romantic scenes but to depict the sexuality and desire from real life as he openly said to Rylance, ―I don't want you to be concerned with masking parts of your body or your genitals. I want to capture something that's as real as possible."168 And Chéreau‘s aim of depicting real bodies was fulfilled having been confirmed by Quin who compares Rylance‘s naked body to ―one of Schiele's agonised studies of the human figure.‖169

Patrice Chéreau was disappointed by the reviews that commented only on sexual scenes as being shocking. According to Chéreau, many spectators simply were not able or did not want to see the hidden communication between the lovers.170 Chéreau complained about the nature of journalism today and noted that it is a big problem for the film, ―people in the audience have told me, ‗I didn't want to see the film after reading the reviews, and then finally I went to watch it, and it's not the film I was

165 Jessica Winter, ―Mark Rylance‘s Body Language,‖ Village Voice, October 23, 2001, http://www.villagevoice.com/film/mark-rylances-body-language-6396702. 166 Anthony Quinn, ―The Big Picture: Intimacy (18),‖ Independent, July 26, 2001, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-big-picture-intimacy-18- 9270659.html. 167 Quinn, ―The Big Picture: Intimacy (18),‖ Independent. 168 Winter, ―Mark Rylance‘s Body Language,‖ Village Voice. 169 Quinn, ―The Big Picture: Intimacy (18),‖ Independent. 170 Chris Neumer, ―Patrice Chereau Interview,‖ Stumped Magazine, http://www.stumpedmagazine.com/interviews/patrice-chereau/.

51 expecting. It's not just about sex.‘‖171 There is much more to it as for the aim of the project Chéreau remarked, ―so we decided, ‗What can you learn about someone when making love to them?‘ That was really interesting to direct. The sex became a language -- a dialogue and they are talking. And they're saying a lot. Sometimes, people say, ‗They don't talk.‘ But nobody talks that much when they're making love.‖172 And Quin from The Independent was aware of lovers‘ communication yet the rest of the film was not that persuasive for him as he observed:

The irony of it all is that the sex scenes between Rylance and Fox have a fleshy realism and an urgency which the rest of the movie conspicuously lacks. Chéreau, . . . , wants to show sex as an expression of the characters' drives – how the act can be a conversation, or a furious row, or a farewell. It's what happens outside of their intense couplings that makes Intimacy feel clogged and, at its worst, completely artificial.173

Rylance confirmed the artificial aspect of the dialogues by saying, ―a few friends in England who have seen the film have said, you know, the dialogue didn't feel completely natural. And when I saw the film I thought that maybe I should have been more strong about making changes. But Patrice has very forceful ideas about how he wants things to be.‖174

Chéreau‘s ambition to depict everything in naturalistic way was described and praised by Michael Thomson from BBC, ―so as to render their sweaty encounters as untitillating as possible, Chéreau never uses attractive lens filters, slick camera moves, or exciting editing, and so the ill-at-ease relationship of this inarticulate couple comes through all the more powerfully.‖175 Despite this acclaim, Thomson finds a lacking element as well, ―the only real mistake the director makes is to ram home his themes and ideas through the self-conscious remarks of Jay's colleague and

171 Kaufman, ―INTERVIEW: Night Lights; Patrice Chereau Probes ‗Intimacy‘,‖ Indiewire. 172 Kaufman, ―INTERVIEW: Night Lights; Patrice Chereau Probes ‗Intimacy‘,‖ Indiewire. 173 Quinn, ―The Big Picture: Intimacy (18),‖ Independent. 174 Winter, ―Mark Rylance‘s Body Language,‖ Village Voice, October 23, 2001, http://www.villagevoice.com/film/mark-rylances-body-language-6396702. 175 Michael Thomson, ―Intimacy,‖ BBC, July 18, 2001, http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/07/18/intimacy_2001_review.shtml.

52 the overheated prattle of Claire's chatty husband. He should have trusted in the couple's significant silences, and the sex.‖176

Many reviewers mentioned significant role of the lead actors and their remarkable performance. Michael Thomson, for instance, praised their performances in his review as ―two full, textured performances from Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox, who are such good actors that they convey pain or loss with the smallest twitch of a mouth or the briefest glance.‖177

6.5. Comparison of the Plots

The film Intimacy is evidence that in a modern way the fidelity factor slowly but surely withdraws when making an adaptation. The film is named after the novella although it also drew inspiration from the short story ―Nightlight‖. The plots differ a lot because the film was merely loosely based on its literary sources.178

The novella Intimacy is narrated in the first person. The main protagonist is a middle aged scriptwriter from London who has won some prizes and awards and he was even nominated for Oscar. The name of the narrator is revealed as late as on page twenty—four. Most of the content consists of Jay‘s inner thoughts or flashbacks with memories regarding his parents, partner Susan and their two sons three and five years old, Jay‘s mistress Nina, friends Victor and Asif. The novella begins with Jay‘s statement, ―It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back.‖179 The story takes place during this night and next day Jay really leaves the house. The entire novella takes place during one night in Jay‘s head. He contemplates the leaving from all possible angles and tries to vindicate this action.180

The length of the short story ―Nightlight‖ is just about eight pages. There are no names revealed. It is third person narration. The main protagonist is a middle aged man who left wife and kids five years ago. Now he experiences sexual encounter every Wednesday with a woman he does not know anything about. They do no talk. He begins to be addicted to her and when she does not show up one Wednesday he

176 Thomson, ―Intimacy,‖ BBC. 177 Thomson, ―Intimacy,‖ BBC. 178 For more detailed information see chapter The Background and the Origin of the Film Adaptation. 179 Kureishi, Intimacy (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), 3. 180 Kureishi, Intimacy.

53 feels desperate. She comes again however and he realizes that he wants to know her and talk to her. The story ends before any talk occurs.181 The film could be assumed to be a ‗sequel‘ of these two literary sources to those who read it.

Definition of a ‗sequel‘ from Merriam-Webster dictionary: a: subsequent development b: the next installment (as of a speech or story); especially: a literary, cinematic, or televised work continuing the course of a story begun in a preceding one.182 The main protagonist of the film Intimacy is middle aged former musician Jay who works as a head barman in London. He left his wife and two sons a year ago. Its beginning is definitely inspired by the short story ―Nightlight.‖ Jay experiences sexual encounter every Wednesday. In the film, it is not evident neither how they met nor how their relationship began. They do not talk much as in the short story. With passing time however Jay yearns for more and he follows her. This destroys their mysterious relationship because the enchantment of fancy is crushed by reality.183

6.6. Comparison of Selected Aspects and Scenes

Using Hutcheon methodology, the novella and the short story belong to the ―telling mode of engagement with the audience‖. Therefore it is quite simple to express characters‘ thoughts. Since inner monologue is not easy to depict in film, Jay discusses his thoughts and problems with his colleague from work Ian. The film belongs to ―showing mode of engagement.‖ It is not possible to see into actors‘ heads. Thus the audience must focus on actors‘ facial expressions and gestures. If camera uses close-up (shooting just faces) it is a hint for the spectators to focus mainly on the facial expressions. If the whole figures are visible the focus moves to gestures and the body. Film Intimacy very often relies on close-up.

Jay in film works in a bar which is a busy place and it is definitely more interesting for the audience than being a scriptwriter as in the novella.

181 Kureishi, ―Nightlight,‖ in Love in a Blue Time (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), 138-145. 182 ―Sequel,‖ Merriam Webster Dictionary, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sequel. 183 Intimacy, directed by Patrice Chéreau (2001), DVD.

Flashbacks are used both in the novella and film. In the film, they are created through a few special devices. First one is moderating the sound of the current scene while turning on the sound of the following scene a few seconds earlier before changing the shot. Secondly, echoes of the voices can be heard. Thirdly, younger look of the characters—Jay has longer hair and looks younger. In the novella, there is no smooth transition to flashbacks of memories. It is divided just by blank line or an asterisk and taking turns quite often. Sometimes it feels really fragmented which was Kureishi‘s intention to depict the ―roughness‖ of the book.184

Jay contemplates his parents in the book. However we do not learn anything about them in the film. It might be useful to consider Jay‘s parents relationship as one of possible reasons why he struggles to have happy relationships with women. He claimed that his parents ―. . . were loyal and faithful to one another. Disloyal and unfaithful to themselves.‖185 He saw that his parents were frustrated and he assumes that marriage is a struggle.

Jay in the novella expresses himself about realization that he is unhappy, ―I suppose I want to be loyal to something else now. Or someone else. Yes; myself. When did it start going wrong with Susan? When I opened my eyes; when I decided I wanted to see.‖186 In film Jay admits to Claire‘s husband Andy that he did not realize how unhappy he was in marriage until he left. It seems that Jay is trying to convince Andy that his marriage is unhappy as well to get Claire just for himself. Claire in film seems have similar dilemma to Jay‘s in the book: Leave or not to leave. She is not happy with her husband and she seems to be in love with Jay, however she stays with her son and husband eventually.

In the book, there is information that Jay has Asian ancestry. He was bullied in childhood and lived in constant fear which might have caused his split personality and problems with relationships. The film does not deal with race issues at all.

In the short story ―Nightlight‖ there is this scene when the woman does not come and the man becomes desperate as it goes in the story, ―he stands at the window . . . for three hours, feeling in the first hour like Casanova, in the second like a child

184 For more detailed information on this matter see chapter The Background and the Origin of the Written Works. 185 Kureishi, Intimacy, 58. 186 Kureishi, Intimacy, 42.

55 awaiting its mother, and during the third like an old man.‖187 This scene is almost identical in the film. Jay hastily cleans the room because it is about two o‘clock (the time she regularly comes) and then there is shot of him looking impatiently from the window awaiting Claire. The second shot is darker thus it indicates that some time has passed and Jay‘s look begins to be sad and disappointed because she did not come. In the third shot he sits in the chair with resignation looking bored when just playing with some plastic foil with bubbles. Then he looks at the watch in the kitchen while waiting in the hall and it is eleven past three. In the next shot he anxiously lays on the floor in his bedroom. Then he gets out of the house when it is already dark outside and hurries straight to the pub where Claire performs in a basement theatre. Jay obviously needs and wants more since this moment. Jay‘s situation is alike with the situation of the main protagonist of the ―Nightlight‖ who ―can only gauge her mood by the manner of her love-making.‖188 Conversation never happens in the story because he fears of losing the fancy which probably provide them with more satisfaction than reality. However for Jay in film this situation is unbearable.

There is interesting contrast between Jay in the film and Jay in the novella. Jay in the novella expresses himself, ―. . . , I am not sure that I can touch someone as I used to–frivolously. After a certain age, sex can never be casual. I couldn‘t ask for so little. To lay your hand on another‘s body, or to put your mouth against another‘s – what a commitment that is! To choose someone is to uncover a whole life. And it is to invite them to uncover you.‖189 In the film however, Claire comes just for so little and does not ask anything else. Surprisingly, Jay is the one who does not want it to be casual and wants to uncover the whole life of his lover. Thus the film ends quite sadly for Jay since Claire decides to stay with her husband and son. In contrary, the end of the novella is full of hope and love. This different mood of endings between adaptation and adapted text is possible as a successful adaptation should be an autonomous work on its own without any previous knowledge of the adapted text.190 Therefore film Intimacy certainly is an autonomous work on its own.

187 Kureishi, ―Nightlight,‖ in Love in a Blue Time (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), 140. 188 Kureishi, ―Nightlight,‖ in Love in a Blue Time (London: Faber and Faber, 1997), 144. 189 Kureishi, Intimacy, 20. 190 Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 2006, 36-37; 121.

Another important aspect of showing mode is music which can be heard in contrast to telling mode in which the audience must use their imagination. Music often helps to specify the emotions and mood of the scene.

Mise-en-scène in showing mode can be assumed to be an equivalent to description in the telling mode. Mise-en-scène is a French word expressing ―the process of setting a stage, with regard to placement of actors, scenery, properties, surroundings, and environment.‖191

191 ―Mise-en-scène,‖ Dictionary, http://www.dictionary.com/browse/mise-en-scene.

CONCLUSION

The aim of this thesis was to compare selected literary works written by British writer Hanif Kureishi to their film adaptations. Specifically his two early works My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), and The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) and one of his middle work Intimacy (1998). Hanif Kureishi was born in Bromley, South London to his Pakistani father and English mother. Since Kureishi has experienced tough childhood full of racist attacks, he deals with issue of race and class in his early works. In his middle works, Kureishi explores midlife crisis. Kureishi was criticized for using autobiographic material by members of his family. His piquant style of writing earned him a label of controversial writer. Kureishi is either praised or condemned by literary critics and the audience. The comparison of selected reviews of both the adapted texts and the adaptations were executed in the last three chapters.

The second chapter described a concise history of adaptation studies and history of search for interdisciplinary dialog. In the past, the fidelity of adaptation to its adapted text was considered to be crucial. Although this approach is rather being relinquished by contemporary researchers in adaptation studies, it still reverberates.

The theoretical frame used throughout the thesis was based on Linda Hutcheon‘s theory of adaptation which belongs among current trends in adaptation studies. Hutcheon attempts to prove that the adaptations have the same value as the adapted texts. In addition, Hutcheon claims that evaluating adaptations on the premise of fidelity is obsolete and futile. Hutcheon defines three different modes in which texts engage their audience—telling, showing, and interacting. In this thesis, the telling mode of literary works and the showing mode of their film adaptations were examined and compared. These two modes of engagement differ in the degree of audience‘s immersion. The telling mode immerses its audience through mental processes of imagination. The showing mode, on the other hand immerses its audience through the perception of the aural and the visual. Both modes of engagement have some advantages and disadvantages when being compared to one another. The advantage of the telling mode, for example, is that the experience is significantly individual concerning audience‘s imagination which is limited only by the words on the page. In the showing mode, on the contrary, there is no great space

58 for audience‘s imagination since the visual and the aural perception are instantly employed. The disadvantage of the showing mode might be the difficulty to convey character‘s thoughts and feelings. In the book, the audience is simply told about it, however the film applies devices such as voice over, soliloquy, kind of shot—close- up tells the audience that facial expressions are important. The medium or the long shot tell the audience to focus rather on gestures and posture of the characters. Another element is sound and music which are essential part of showing mode. It can either enhance the emotions or to be contrary to it in the case of irony. The process of adaptation usually involves change in the medium and mode of engagement. In this thesis literary works were adapted to film versions. Therefore, it was necessary to make cuts in the adapted texts to fit in the size of particular film adaptation. Film‘s length is limited. It can become either burden or benefit in the form of more condensed plot.

The fourth chapter was dedicated to the analysis of My Beautiful Laundrette. The screenplay written by Hanif Kureishi and film directed by Stephen Frears were compared. First of all, differences between writing a novel and writing a screenplay were introduced. In the script, the beauty of words is not important since it serves only as a blueprint for film makers. It was discovered that the film benefitted from sounds and music. The suspense was increased in dramatic moments and the sound of bubbles and spinning washing machine enriched the initial and final credits. Moreover, several lines from the script concerning race, class and Thatcher economics were cut in the film. Yet, these issues were still present. Furthermore, the controversial reception of the film was demonstrated by presenting excerpts from selected reviews. The film was usually praised by critics for dealing with issues such as race, class, sex, corruption, ignorance, and prejudice with ease. However some British Asians were offended by their negative representation.

The fifth chapter dealt with the analysis of the novel The Buddha of Suburbia written by Kureishi and its adaptation in the form of television miniseries for BBC. The script was made by Kureishi and the director Roger Michell. On one hand, the showing mode of the miniseries lacked the first person narration and the subjective point of view of the main protagonist which was crucial part of the novel for its humour. The music was, on the other hand, an advantage of the showing mode for

59 evocation of the seventies. The novel‘s telling mode is characteristic by exposition, either at the beginning or throughout the entire work giving information of the family past. In the miniseries, there is no exposition of the past. Actors‘ performances in the miniseries were brilliant and thus appreciated in the showing mode. In the telling mode of the novel, the reader has to use their imagination for the characters. Kureishi, however, is able to describe them in detail. In addition, selected reviews of both the novel and the miniseries were explored. The subject of criticism was again Kureishi‘s way of representation of British Asians. Others criticized Kureishi for a large number of violence and obscenity. Many critics mentioned that the first half of the novel concerning life in the suburbs was better crafted than the second half related to life in the city. Miniseries was criticized for the same issues as the novel and sometimes for lacking the first person narration. However the soundtrack by David Bowie, the depicting of the seventies and the cast were much appreciated.

The sixth chapter was devoted to the last analysis which dealt with novella Intimacy and a short story ―Nightlight‖ and film Intimacy loosely based on these literary works. The film was directed by French director Patrice Chéreau who was considered to be controversial artist. It resulted in controversies with both the novella and the film. It was discovered that the telling mode of the literary works certainly exceled in interior monologue of the main protagonist. The film frequently used close-up. In both the novella and the film, flashbacks were used. However the film and its showing mode properties have ability to make the transition from the present to the past smoother. Nonetheless Kureishi‘s aim was to experiment with language on the page. Kureishi did not try to make it smooth, he wanted to make it rough and he ‗succeeded.‘ Similarly as in the two previous chapters, selected reviews were analysed. Kureishi was frequently criticised for using his own experience. Intimacy was assumed to be based on his divorce with Tracey Scoffield. For some critics it was insensitive, for others it was full of male honesty and it was considered to have elements of male testimonial. Chéreau‘s film Intimacy also raised many questions and controversial discussions. The explicit sexual scenes were the cause of split audience. For some, the communication without speaking was skilfully portrayed by the main protagonists. Other reviews criticized the rest of the film and the dialogues for being artificial.

In conclusion, considering value of adaptations merely according to the degree of fidelity is obsolete. In current trends of adaptation studies, other elements of adaptations are being studied. This thesis dealt with differences between the telling and the showing mode of engagement based on Linda Hutcheon‘s theory of adaptation. Both modes proved to have some advantages and disadvantages, however they can enrich one another. As for Kureishi‘s work, he was always interested in controversial issues, therefore reception of his subsequent work might be controversial as well.

RESUMÉ

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá literárními pracemi britského spisovatele Hanifa Kureishiho a jejich filmovými adaptacemi. Konkrétně se jedná o My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), a Intimacy (1998). Hanif Kureishi se narodil v Bromley, což je část předměstí jižního Londýna. Jeho otec pochází z Pákistánu a matka z Británie. Proto v dětství trpěl, jelikož mu byly adresovány rasistické poznámky a zažil i fyzickou šikanu. Jeho krize identity je rozebrána právě v díle The Buddha of Suburbia. Dále se v jeho brzkých pracích věnoval otázce rasismu, třídy, ekonomice Margaret Thatcherové, sexuální identitě a násilí. V jeho knize Intimacy se zabývá otázkou, zda jako otec odejít od rodiny, když není šťastný. Tahle otázka byla také pravděpodobně inspirována skutečnými událostmi v jeho životě, jelikož se jako otec dvou synů rozvedl se svou někdejší ženou Tracey Scoffieldovou. Kureishi je považován za kontroverzního autora a proto je tak zajímavé se jím zabývat. Byl často kritizován za necitlivé použití autobiografického materiálu ať už ze strany rodiny nebo literárních a filmových kritiků. Recenze jednotlivých děl a jejich adaptací byly také porovnány v posledních třech kapitolách.

Teoretický rámec pro jednotlivé rozbory děl je založen na teorii adaptace Lindy Hutcheonové, která považuje adaptaci jako stejně hodnotné dílo jako její předlohu bez ohledu na míru věrnosti. Hledisko věrnosti je zastaralé, i když je občas na věrnost adaptace brán zřetel i v dnešní době. Od strukturalistického obratu se však od tohoto konceptu upouští, jelikož omezuje vývoj disciplíny. Lze se například zabývat otázkami jako: Jak filmaři interpretovali literární předlohu? Byl význam předlohy změněn v procesu adaptace? Byla motivace autorů umělecká, politická, ekonomická apod.?

Na začátku dvacátého prvního století ještě neexistovala ucelená teorie adaptace. Thomas Leitch tuto situaci označil jako „teoretické vakuum.― Velkým impulsem pro změnu se stal projekt Roberta Stama a Alessandry Raengové. Také britské teoretičky Deborah Cartmellová a Imelda Whelehanová přispěly ke změně založením periodika zabývajícího se filmovými adaptacemi literárních předloh. Jejich cílem bylo najít společný dialog mezi literaturou a filmem a demonstrovat jejich vzájemné obohacení

62 skrze překlad jednoho umění do druhého. Mnoho toho ještě nebylo řečeno o opačném procesu recepce, tj. když čtenář přistupuje k literárnímu dílu až po zhlédnutí filmové adaptace daného díla. Tato oblast je jedna z možností pro budoucí zkoumání adaptace. Peter Lev v jeho studii o budoucnosti adaptačních studií zase naznačil jinou mezeru ve výzkumu. Podle Leva je scénář zajímavý pro diskusi. Nese totiž svědectví o procesu adaptace a může se stát uměleckým dílem sám o sobě. Lev zmiňuje dva fakty, které by mohli daný výzkum ztížit. Prvním z nich je nelehká dostupnost scénářů a druhým ještě zásadnějším je případná náročná práce s analyzováním více verzí scénářů, předlohy a adaptace dohromady.

Jak již bylo řečeno, tato diplomové práce používá teoretický aparát Lindy Hutcheonové, která definovala tři různé způsoby zapojení se publika do procesu recepce uměleckého díla. Prvním z nich je ‚vyprávěcí‗ způsob (telling mode) charakteristický pro literární díla. Druhým z nich je ‚předváděcí‗ způsob (showing mode) charakteristický vizuálním a aurálním vnímáním divadelní hry, filmu apod. Třetí způsob je interaktivní (interacting mode), který zahrnuje i fyzickou reakci recipienta, avšak tímto způsobem se tato práce nezabývá. Dále se práce věnuje otázkám, co se dá adaptovat, kdo je adaptér, recepční zkušenosti publika obeznámeného s předlohou adaptace a naopak recepci publika bez předchozí zkušenosti přistupujícího k adaptaci jako autonomní umělecké práci jako každé jiné.

V rozboru díla My Beautiful Laundrette se jedná o porovnání původního scénáře napsaného Kureishim a stejnojmenného filmu režírovaným Stephenem Frearsem. Rozdíl mezi psaním scénáře a románu je například ten, že scénárista nemusí dbát na stylistiku, jelikož scénář slouží pouze jako detailní plán pro natáčení. Je jistě zajímavé seznámit se se scénářem, ale film My Beautiful Laundrette přináší benefit v podobě zvuku a hudby, což jsou typické znaky ‚předváděcího‗ způsobu. Napínavé scény byly díky hudbě ještě intenzivnější, než ve scénáři. Zajímavý efekt pak způsobily zvuky bublin a zvuk ždímající pračky při úvodních a závěrečných titulcích. Bylo zjištěno, že repliky obsahující rasistické poznámky byly ve filmu lehce zredukovány. Film byl pozitivně hodnocen pro lehkost, s jakou zobrazuje složité otázky jako rasa, třída, sexuální identita, ekonomika Margaret Thatcherové apod. Na druhou stranu mnoho britských Asiatů bylo dotčeno jejich negativní reprezentací.

Další dílo komparativní analýzy byl Kureishiho román The Buddha of Suburbia a jeho filmová adaptace ve formě čtyřdílné minisérie pro BBC. Scénář pro minisérii napsal Kureishi a režisér Roger Michell. Nevýhodou minisérií se stala ztráta subjektivního vyprávění z pohledu hlavní postavy Karima, které bylo v románu přínosné a humorné. Hudební doprovod filmové verze však předčila pouhý popis hudby sedmdesátých let v knize. Autorem vychvalovaného soundtracku byl umělec David Bowie. Dalším důležitým aspektem je expozice, čili nastínění minulosti postav. V románu je to běžná záležitost. Stejně tak je tomu u románu The Buddha of Suburbia. Ve filmové verzi se však divák expozice nedočká. Přijde tak o cenné informace o kontextu, ze kterého problémy mohou vyplývat. Recenze jak románu, tak minisérie byly rozporuplné. Opět byla problémem již dříve zmíněná reprezentace britských Asiatů. I když sexuální scény byly ve filmu redukovány, obě díla si vysloužila kritiku za přílišnou obscénnost. Recenze týkající se románu například vychvalovaly první část knihy popisující zkušenost z předměstí v porovnání s druhou částí popisující zkušenost z Londýna a New Yorku. Filmová verze byla zase chválena díky brilantním hereckým výkonům, např. Roshana Setha, Naveena Andrewse apod. a také díky soundtracku a kostýmů či prostředí vhodně evokujících sedmdesátá léta.

Poslední rozbor se týká díla Intimacy. Film Intimacy byl inspirován novelou Intimacy a krátkou povídkou ―Nightlight‖ Hanifa Kureishiho. Film se zasloužil o vlnu kritiky pro explicitní sexuální scény. Francouzský režisér, Patrice Chéreau, však usiloval o naturalistické zobrazení např. pomocí záběru zblízka. Jeho cílem bylo zachytit komunikaci bez mluvení, což se mu podle některých kritiků povedlo. Kureishiho novela byla tvořena hlavně vnitřním monologem muže ve středním věku, Jaye, který trpí krizí středního věku, není šťastný s partnerkou, a proto opustí ji i jeho dva syny. Kureishi byl kritizován za necitlivé použití autobiografického materiálu. Krátce před napsáním novely Intimacy totiž sám zažil rozvod a rozpad dlouholetého vztahu. Porovnávaným aspektem mezi díly byl například flashback, čili pohled do minulosti. Kniha byla kritizována pro její neplynulé přecházení z přítomnosti do minulosti. Kureishi ale přiznal, že to byl jeho záměr. Experimentoval s jazykem, a líbilo se mu, jak text vypadá. Filmové přechody z přítomnosti do minulosti byly naopak zvládnuty velmi decentně díky filmovým nástrojům. Přímo ve vzpomínkách pak byly zpomalené záběry, a ozvěny hlasů vedle mladšího vzhledu Jaye.

Na závěr je nutno podotknout a tím připomenout již zmíněný fakt, že hodnotit význam adaptací jen z hlediska věrnosti k adaptovanému textu je zastaralé. Tento koncept také omezuje další vývoj disciplíny. Proto se v současných adaptačních studiích sledují jiné výzkumné otázky.

V této diplomové práci byly porovnány literární díla Hanifa Kureishiho s jejich filmovými adaptacemi na pozadí teorie adaptace Lindy Hutcheonové. Ukázalo se, že jak ‚vyprávěcí‗ tak ‚předváděcí‗ styl má různé výhody a nevýhody, ale jejich vzájemnou kooperací se mohou obohatit.

Co se týče děl Hanifa Kureishiho, je možné, že se čtenáři dočkají dalších kontroverzních témat v jeho próze, jelikož právě taková témata ho vždycky zajímala.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. mění ilmu: vod o tudia ormy a Stylu. 1. vyd. ed. V Praze: Nakladatelství Akademie múzických umění, 2011.

Bubeníček, Petr. ―Filmová adaptace – Editorial.‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu. Praha: Národní filmový archiv, no. 1 (22/2010), 5-6.

Bubeníček, Petr. ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu.‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu. Praha: Národní filmový archiv, no. 1 (22/2010), 7-21.

Buchanan, Bradley. Hanif Kureishi. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Chatman, Seymour Benjamin. eoretick Knihovna. vyd. 1. ed. Vol. 21, Příběh a Diskurs: Narativní truktura v Literatuře a ilmu. Brno: Host, 2008.

Cumming, Laura. ―Charity ends at home: Intimate? Pathological more like. Laura Cumming on Hanif Kureishi‘s toxic creation.‖ Guardian, May 9, 1998. http://www.theguardian.com/books/1998/may/09/fiction.hanifkureishi.

Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Jamal, Mahmood. ―Dirty Linen,‖ Artrage (Autumn 1987). Reprinted in Kobena Mercer, ed., Black Film, British Cinema. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1988, 21-2. In Susie Thomas. Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Kaleta, Kenneth C. Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Storyteller. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.

Kaufman, Anthony. ―INTERVIEW: Night Lights; Patrice Chereau Probes ‗Intimacy‘.‖ Indiewire, October 16, 2001. http://www.indiewire.com/article/interview_night_lights_patrice_chereau_probes _intimacy.

Kureishi, Hanif. The Buddha of Suburbia. London: Faber and Faber, 2009.

———. Intimacy. London: Faber and Faber, 1998.

———. ―Nightlight.‖ In Love in a Blue Time, 138-145. London: Faber and Faber, 1997.

———. My Beautiful Laundrette. London: Faber and Faber, 2000.

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McCrum, Robert. ―Hanif Kureishi Interview: ‗Every 10 years you become someone else.‘‖ Guardian, January 19, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/19/hanif-kureishi-interview-last- word.

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Mišíková, Katarína. Mysl a příběh ve filmové fikci. O kognitivistických přístupech k teorii filmové narace, (Praha: Nakladatelství Akademie múzických umění 2009), 154. In Petr Bubeníček, ―Filmová adaptace – Hledání interdisciplinárního dialogu.‖ Iluminace: Časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu. Praha: Národní filmový archiv, no. 1 (22/2010), 7.

Mitchell, Elvis. ―FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW; Raw Desire and Trysts, But No Sign of a Tango.‖ New York Times, October 11, 2001. http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C07E2DC163FF932A25753C1A9 679C8B63.

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Moore, Suzanne. ―Why I Applaud the Books of Men Who Tell It Like It Is,‖ Independent, May 15, 1998, 21. In Susie Thomas. Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.; David Sexton. Evening Standard, May 14, 1998. In Susie Thomas. Hanif Kureishi: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

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ANALYZED FILMS

Intimacy, directed by Patrice Chéreau (2001), DVD, KOCH LORBER FILMS, 2004.

My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen Frears (1985), DVD, Channel 4, 2008.

The Buddha of Suburbia, directed by Roger Michell (1993), DVD, BBC Worldwide, 2007.

ANOTACE

Příjmení a jméno: Habrnalová Adéla

Katedra: Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky

Název práce: Literární díla Hanifa Kureishiho a jejich filmové adaptace

Vedoucí práce: Mgr. Pavlína Flajšarová, Ph.D.

Počet stran: 71

Počet znaků: 137 795

Klíčová slova: Hanif Kureishi, filmová adaptace, britská literatura, rasismus, kontroverzní spisovatel, Moje krásná prádelna, Buddha z předměstí, Intimita

Předložená diplomová práce se zabývá literárními díly Hanifa Kureishiho a jejich filmovými adaptacemi. Konkrétně se jedná o tato díla: Moje krásná prádelna, Buddha z předměstí, Intimita. Cílem je díla porovnat na základě teorie adaptace Lindy Hutcheonové, která považuje hledisko věrnosti za zastaralé v hodnocení adaptací. Porovnány budou konkrétní média a adaptabilita vybraných prvků při přenosu z jednoho média do druhého. Dále se práce věnuje porovnání recenzí jak literárních předloh, tak jejich adaptací. Předpokládá se široká škála hodnocení, jelikož jsou daná díla spojována s kontroverzními autory a umělci.

ANNOTATION

Name: Habrnalová Adéla

Department: Department of English and American Studies

Title of the Thesis: Literary Works by Hanif Kureishi and Their Film Adaptations

Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Pavlína Flajšarová, Ph.D.

Number of Pages: 71

Number of Characters: 137 795

Key Words: Hanif Kureishi, Film adaptation, British literature, Racism, Controversial writer, The Buddha of Suburbia, My Beautiful Laundrette, Intimacy

This diploma thesis deals with literary works written by Hanif Kureishi and their film adaptations. Particularly, works such as: The Buddha of Suburbia, My Beautiful Laundrette, and Intimacy. The aim is to compare these works to their film adaptations on the background of Lindy Hutcheon‘s theory of adaptation. Hutcheon considers fidelity factor to be obsolete in evaluating adaptations. The particular media will be compared as well as the transferability of selected aspects in adaptation process from one medium to another. Furthermore, this thesis is devoted to comparison of reviews of both the literary works and their film adaptations. It is assumed that reviews will vary a lot because these works are associated with controversial authors and artists.